Latest / Run Mountain Peaks / Northeast Trail Adventures with Eli Burakian

Transcript

Northeast Trail Adventures with Eli Burakian · Run Mountain Peaks

• 0:00
  OK guys, this week we have Eli Barakian.
• 0:02
  He is a man of many talents, very much in the Northeast trail
• 0:06
  community. He's run 1600 milers.
• 0:10
  He did the Grand Slam of Ultra running 100 milers in 2024.
• 0:15
  He's got a bunch of FKTS. He's been on a bunch of cool
• 0:19
  routes all over the world, not just New England, New Hampshire,
• 0:23
  all over the world. He's a published author,
• 0:25
  published trail mower, so he's done a bunch of different
• 0:30
  guidebooks in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, 48
• 0:33
  waterfall stuff, how to play chess.
• 0:38
  He's, like I said, man of many talents.
• 0:40
  He's a photographer. And more recently he founded
• 0:43
  Northeast Trail Adventures, which you guys all probably know
• 0:48
  lighting the vertical backyard world on fire at a stutney last
• 0:52
  fall could turn into the stable vertical backyard format
• 0:57
  worldwide, potentially super cool event.
• 1:01
  And the other thing Northeast Trail Adventures has is the
• 1:03
  running retreats that they've been doing.
• 1:05
  So they got 1 coming up this summer.
• 1:07
  It's June 5th to June 8th. They still have some slots open
• 1:10
  if you're interested. And you basically just go up,
• 1:13
  hang out in Gorham, NH and get out into the Prezis, the all the
• 1:17
  awesome trails around there with a crazy team.
• 1:21
  So it's Eli and Justin Chapman who founded Northeast Trail
• 1:24
  Adventures. And then you have Jeff Garmeyer,
• 1:27
  Phil Karsha, Alyssa Gaddesky, Hillary Mccloy, Jim Anderson,
• 1:32
  Ada Chapman, basically an awesome team of trail experts,
• 1:37
  coachers, athletes. They get to learn from, hear
• 1:41
  stories and go experience the Whites.
• 1:44
  So like I said, that's coming up June 5th to June 8th and he
• 1:48
  offered you guys a big discount. So if you're interested, stick
• 1:52
  around, hear about the event and and yeah, go get that discount.
• 1:56
  OK, Eli Barakian, runner, backpacker, author, race
• 2:02
  director, photographer. You wear many hats.
• 2:06
  So I think there's a few things I want to talk to you about.
• 2:09
  Really interested in some of the guidebook stuff that you've
• 2:12
  published. You're a published professional
• 2:15
  trail mower, so I think I have some good questions there.
• 2:18
  But can you just give a background of how you kind of
• 2:21
  got all this stuff into your life, like made this your life,
• 2:24
  all these different things that you do?
• 2:26
  Sure well thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here Love
• 2:30
  listening to the pod. One hat you didn't mention was
• 2:34
  dad, which is a takes up a lot of my time these days.
• 2:38
  Two awesome kids. So let me see, I grew up mostly
• 2:43
  in southern Vermont, moved to Florida for high school, came
• 2:47
  back up to New Hampshire for college.
• 2:50
  And during that period I, I went to Dartmouth College and
• 2:54
  Dartmouth has this lodge up on Mount Mousselach of the
• 2:56
  Mousselach Ravine Lodge. And I worked there for a few
• 3:01
  terms during college and just realized I loved, just loved
• 3:04
  being up in the mountains. After college, I managed that
• 3:07
  ravine lodge for three years and just sort of fell in love with
• 3:12
  hiking, did a bunch, did a little consulting in White River
• 3:16
  Junction for a few years, but fell in love with photography
• 3:20
  while I was working at Mount Mousselock and decided like,
• 3:25
  well, it was actually right after college.
• 3:26
  I want my buddy Mousselock was like 1/2 a year gig.
• 3:29
  You know, we're up there from like like May to early November.
• 3:32
  And this was the old lodge. The new lodge is a little bit
• 3:35
  longer season but and my buddy and I who graduated a few years
• 3:39
  older was managing the lodge with me.
• 3:40
  He and I decided to go to New Zealand.
• 3:43
  So we like we just like flew over there for like 6 weeks and
• 3:46
  like went you know, we bought a car for like 500 bucks and drove
• 3:52
  around and like camped and you could, you could like stay in
• 3:54
  these like hostels and camp out. Sigh.
• 3:56
  I was like 8 bucks a night and we went hiking all over the
• 3:59
  place for like 6 weeks. Fell in love with photography,
• 4:03
  bought a camera for that trip, knew I wanted that to be a big
• 4:06
  part of my life. Didn't quite know how.
• 4:09
  After Moose Lock, did some consulting and eventually went
• 4:13
  back to my alma mater in 2011 as the photographer for Dartmouth
• 4:18
  College. Awesome.
• 4:19
  But what got me that job, helped get me that job was after I
• 4:22
  left, I left consulting for a year and just focused on
• 4:25
  photography and did a coffee table book about Mount
• 4:29
  Mousselach. And I spent about like 100 days
• 4:31
  up on the mountain over the course of that year just taking
• 4:34
  photos. And I wrote about the geology
• 4:36
  and the AT and the history and had different guest authors
• 4:40
  write a bunch. Self published that book and
• 4:43
  just totally fell in love with photography.
• 4:46
  Worked at Dartmouth, and while I was there I'd always try to take
• 4:50
  like hiking trips every year. Yeah.
• 4:54
  And then I got my friend first took me out.
• 4:55
  I was like 2007, we did 10 days on the JMT and I just got hooked
• 5:00
  on backpack and well, I guess I'm missing a big part, I should
• 5:04
  say. I should say I was into
• 5:06
  backpacking but but didn't know how much I wanted to make a big
• 5:09
  part of my life until because in college I decided to try to hike
• 5:18
  the AT and that was a junior between junior and senior year.
• 5:22
  And I didn't make it. I made like the Harpers Ferry
• 5:27
  and I did take about a month off between freshman and sophomore
• 5:29
  year. My girlfriend dumped me.
• 5:32
  I was like, I was like, and I met some through hikers in
• 5:34
  Hanover when I was just chilling with some friends and like, oh,
• 5:36
  this is cool. So when spent a month on the AT,
• 5:39
  then tried to hike the trail in college, didn't and ended up
• 5:44
  just like travelling around the country and hitchhiking.
• 5:46
  And that was a sweet experience, too.
• 5:47
  Yeah, I'm sure you had a lot of good memories and experiences.
• 5:50
  Came back, didn't Mousselaq, and then just decided I wanted to
• 5:53
  keep a big part of my life and I'd added some running in here
• 5:55
  and there. Would do like covered Bridges
• 5:57
  half marathon. Yeah.
• 5:58
  But, you know, would run for a couple weeks and then not again
• 6:01
  for another couple months, you know?
• 6:03
  Yeah. And then, yeah.
• 6:05
  And then the Mousselaq book really got got me in love with
• 6:08
  it. 2007 did the JMT thing, started really getting into it.
• 6:13
  Ended up doing the Sierra High Route actually, 2000, 2003 was
• 6:18
  the JMT. That's right, Sierra High Route
• 6:19
  was 2007 and spent more time out there.
• 6:24
  Got married in 2008 and we've been up in the Upper Valley
• 6:30
  since then. Yeah, I worked at Dartmouth till
• 6:31
  22, left left then, and I've been freelancing since then.
• 6:36
  Yeah. So you've got a wide range of
• 6:38
  you haven't just hiked in the Northeast.
• 6:39
  It sounds like you've hiked a lot of places.
• 6:41
  I've heard about the Iceland experience.
• 6:44
  So you've kind of been all over. Fair, man, mostly in the
• 6:47
  Northeast, but California, I've gone back a number of times, you
• 6:50
  know, did that first one on the JMT and three other times we
• 6:54
  didn't finish up the Sierra High Route, the Southern Sierra High
• 6:56
  Route. Trying to think, yeah, Iceland
• 7:00
  was the big one for sure. Haven't done much or anything
• 7:04
  really in like Europe, but I do have a, a goal in Europe.
• 7:09
  But yeah, mostly New England. And, you know, and, and I guess
• 7:13
  the other part I should add is when I left the consulting job
• 7:17
  before from that to Dartmouth, I work for this other guy that was
• 7:21
  writing outdoor guidebooks on like winter camping or whatever.
• 7:24
  And we were hired by this company, Globe Pequot to do how
• 7:27
  to books, OK, like dummies guides basically.
• 7:31
  And we did dummies guides on like car camping and kayaking.
• 7:34
  And like the author would write the stuff.
• 7:36
  We would just take the photos. Yeah.
• 7:37
  And I got hooked up with Globe Pequot, the publisher, and we
• 7:42
  would also do I did one on raising puppies Brig.
• 7:46
  And chess, yeah. One of them was dog tricks and I
• 7:49
  like had to fake my dog, like getting me a beer from the
• 7:51
  fridge. Oh my God, it was pretty.
• 7:54
  It was pretty funny. OK, so we did all that.
• 7:56
  Anyways, I made a relationship with the publishing company who
• 8:00
  one of their imprints is Falcon Guides.
• 8:03
  They realized I was doing a bunch of stuff and so I started
• 8:05
  doing projects with them and I have since sort of on the side.
• 8:10
  I wish it made me money. It's there's no money in
• 8:13
  guidebooks, no money whatsoever. Gotcha.
• 8:16
  It was always sort of like, oh, you know, honey, I got to go
• 8:20
  work and I'm going on like a two week trip, like banging out 30
• 8:23
  hikes. Yeah.
• 8:25
  But really, it's a chance for me to take do photography, to go
• 8:27
  hiking, to explore and to just like be part of the community
• 8:30
  and learn about it and get me to places I never would have gotten
• 8:35
  to otherwise. So there's that sort of side of
• 8:37
  thing, like the landscape photography, the guidebook
• 8:40
  stuff. Yeah.
• 8:41
  And then then Dartmouth and now freelancing.
• 8:45
  I did a little bit of teaching up at Colby Sawyer, but.
• 8:48
  OK. Cool.
• 8:49
  Yeah, that is that is awesome. And that it definitely I I have
• 8:53
  some a few questions about the guidebook stuff, but I want to
• 8:56
  get back to the Moussa Lock Ravine Lodge, I feel like So I
• 8:59
  was out of college. You said you did that.
• 9:01
  Yeah, during college and after. College, during college and
• 9:03
  after. I feel like looking back I
• 9:05
  didn't get into the hiking running stuff until a couple
• 9:07
  years after college. But I always like go by the AMC
• 9:10
  huts and think like I wish I worked there for a summer.
• 9:13
  I got to experience that. Was that obviously that kind of
• 9:17
  got you into the hiking You talked about the starting with
• 9:19
  that first Moussa Lock book, but was that just like a really good
• 9:23
  experience that you would suggest anyone else to go do?
• 9:26
  Or is it something where a lot of the time you're pretty bored,
• 9:31
  you're just doing dishes like it's not as as prized as it
• 9:34
  maybe looks? What do you?
• 9:35
  Think that was my favorite job. Your favorite job?
• 9:36
  OK, OK. Yeah.
• 9:37
  I mean, I've never worked up, you know, the RMC, the AMC.
• 9:41
  So I don't know. Obviously AMC is a little
• 9:42
  different, but I don't know. We're sort of modelled after
• 9:45
  that. Obviously the Mousselaq ravine
• 9:46
  line you can drive to. Yeah, but we're up in the
• 9:49
  mountains at 2500 feet in the whites.
• 9:51
  Like the trails are right there. As manager at my own cabin, you
• 9:57
  know, all your food's taken care of.
• 9:58
  I did my first round of the 48 that first year there and, and
• 10:04
  it was just, it was just awesome.
• 10:06
  And dishes are great because like basically, you know, if you
• 10:08
  had dishes, for example, you'd be on dish duty, you know, you'd
• 10:11
  work the morning, you'd have like 7 hours another day to go
• 10:13
  do something. Nice, nice.
• 10:15
  Come back and do dishes and as manager I'd always like I give
• 10:18
  myself dishes all the time. OK, so this is a this is
• 10:21
  actually a prize. Of music, yeah, OK, gotcha.
• 10:25
  But you know, I learned how to cook there.
• 10:28
  You develop a great bond with the people that live there.
• 10:31
  Just being up in the whites. I mean, yeah, it's, it's just
• 10:34
  freaking amazing. So yeah, yeah, no, it was a
• 10:37
  very, very fundamental experience for me.
• 10:40
  I mean, I worked there in college, three years after
• 10:42
  college, did a book about Mousselaq.
• 10:44
  My wife worked there with me. I got engaged on Mousselaq.
• 10:47
  Wow. OK, When I think about my time
• 10:49
  at Dartmouth, you know, I was on ski team for three years on the
• 10:54
  development team. I was not a great skier, but I
• 10:58
  that's not where any of my friends came from.
• 10:59
  They came from like my time at Mousselaq, you know, and again,
• 11:03
  I wasn't really a runner or I, you know, I wasn't, I just would
• 11:08
  love to hike basically got into that.
• 11:10
  And I'd like I'd go backpacking if I could take off a little bit
• 11:13
  of time here and there, you know, and I'd like I said I'd
• 11:17
  have adventures that I'd go on for sure.
• 11:20
  You know, after the Mousselaq days.
• 11:22
  I'm trying to think my first, yeah, basically that, that, that
• 11:27
  Sierra high route, the Southern Sierra High route, I got, I went
• 11:30
  with a friend. We spent like 3 weeks out there
• 11:31
  just in the in the Sierras and I was like, oh I'm going to take
• 11:36
  this fitness and go with it. And Vermont 50 was like in my
• 11:39
  town. So I signed up for the Vermont
• 11:42
  make sure it's not a tick on me. Vermont 50K and 2015.
• 11:46
  So that was the beginning of the running thing.
• 11:48
  The running ultra stuff. So I don't, I don't know how I
• 11:50
  just switched over to that. No, sort of.
• 11:52
  I'm just rambling all. Over the No, that's good.
• 11:54
  We want to hear the whole. Storyboard the listeners.
• 11:57
  No, this is great. So the Vermont races you grew up
• 12:01
  around there, was it a big thing in your town?
• 12:04
  Did you always know about these races or was this like, I feel
• 12:07
  like ultra running the last handful of years has gotten just
• 12:09
  a huge boost. Oh, I didn't know about any of
• 12:11
  this. None of it at all.
• 12:13
  I mean, like I said, well, in 2003 I moved to Windsor,
• 12:15
  Vermont, which is just South of Hanover and Norwich area, you
• 12:21
  know, and worked at a consulting.
• 12:23
  White River was sort of outside of town and not part of the
• 12:25
  community. It was when we moved to
• 12:27
  Brownsville in 20, 17. I mean, I signed up for that
• 12:34
  race and was only a few miles away, but I still wasn't really
• 12:36
  part of that community. And I guess that first one was
• 12:38
  like, oh, there's something here.
• 12:40
  I had no idea. But in the town we live, I mean,
• 12:44
  it's a really special place, Brownsville room.
• 12:46
  I don't know if you're familiar with it.
• 12:48
  A little bit, yeah, just what I've heard.
• 12:49
  We're kind of like, I'm working with a select board, like we
• 12:51
  kind of want to like brand this the endurance capital of the
• 12:54
  world. OK, OK, working on it.
• 12:57
  We've got that going 50 right, the 50 kilometer run, fifty mile
• 13:00
  run, 50 mile bike. We got the Vermont 100 which is
• 13:03
  100K and 100 mile run and concurrent horse ride.
• 13:07
  At the same time we've got you know the overland, which is a
• 13:11
  gravel ride and like a 15 mile run.
• 13:14
  We've. Big races.
• 13:16
  Ragnar is there, which is not like one that I'm too familiar
• 13:20
  with, but a lot of people come to that one and we've got my
• 13:23
  race. Just got new vertical backyard
• 13:25
  race. So there's a lot going on in
• 13:27
  that town of like 100 people, you know, but I didn't realize I
• 13:31
  was just outside of town and I was living from 2003 until I did
• 13:34
  the race in 2015. I really had no clue, you know,
• 13:39
  So I feel very fortunate to live in a place like I do, the place
• 13:44
  where I do right now, so. Yeah, I know.
• 13:45
  That is cool. And eventually you end up
• 13:47
  running the Vermont hundred a couple times.
• 13:49
  How many times you've run that? So let me say I did.
• 13:52
  I've done been 100. I've been in it every year since
• 13:57
  2017 but IDNF 2017 ran in 1819 was the really hot year.
• 14:03
  Hardest race in my life. 20 was COVID cancelled, 21 COVID
• 14:07
  cancelled 22 I ran at 23. We had floods.
• 14:11
  Yeah, OK. 24 I ran it and then last year for various reasons, I
• 14:15
  had knocked down at 100 Ki ran 100K last year.
• 14:17
  So yeah, but I try to do that one every year.
• 14:20
  And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of responsible for the trail
• 14:24
  marking of the, of the race. OK, so I'm on on the committee,
• 14:27
  on the trail committee and my role in the trail committee is
• 14:30
  to make sure the course gets marked and unmarked.
• 14:32
  Yeah. So I mark about 20 miles of it
• 14:34
  and then I sort of am responsible for a bunch of
• 14:36
  volunteers that sweet that do the marking the course.
• 14:39
  And I'm really, it's just, you know, it's an incredible race.
• 14:42
  The the founder of it, Laura Farrell is a really good friend
• 14:45
  of mine and she was a badass 100 mile ultra runner in the 80s,
• 14:49
  like one of the first women to really just like Rocket.
• 14:55
  And but she founded Vermont Adaptive, founded the Vermont
• 14:58
  50, founded the Vermont 100. She's in town there and I'm on
• 15:01
  the committee with her. So it's awesome just to be part
• 15:04
  of that. And we raised hundreds of
• 15:06
  thousands of dollars for Vermont Adaptive, which is awesome.
• 15:10
  So it's really cool being part of like my local community, my
• 15:12
  running community, and the Vermont Adaptive community.
• 15:15
  Yeah, you are all over the place.
• 15:17
  So too many things. Too many things, Yeah.
• 15:19
  And I try to make my. And I don't even make a living
• 15:21
  doing any of this. It's all I make a living doing
• 15:23
  photography, Yeah. Yeah, cool.
• 15:27
  Yeah. So I guess going going back to
• 15:28
  the photography. So that's cool.
• 15:29
  So this was not like a a growing up passion.
• 15:32
  You found it kind of at Moussa Lock in the later days.
• 15:34
  And it obviously goes good with hiking.
• 15:36
  You're you're you're out there taking a lot of pictures.
• 15:40
  Do you ever I'm starting to dabble a little bit obviously in
• 15:43
  the content, maybe taking a little bit of pictures, video,
• 15:46
  that kind of thing. But for me, I'm trying to move
• 15:49
  on the trails as well. Yeah.
• 15:50
  So does that ever like? Conflict.
• 15:52
  I can't do both. Can't do.
• 15:54
  Both. It's so hard, Yeah, you know, in
• 15:56
  my photography these days, I must admit.
• 15:58
  Like is mostly shooting advents or portraits or people or you
• 16:03
  know, I don't the the landscape photography, which is, you know,
• 16:06
  for the guidebooks, which is what I love, doesn't really pay
• 16:10
  the bill. Like you said, that's passion
• 16:12
  projects, yeah. But it's really hard, it's
• 16:15
  really hard to to do that to do both, especially if you just
• 16:19
  want to think about your fitness and think about moving and very
• 16:22
  limited amount of time. So you sort of have to go out
• 16:24
  with the mindset like this is a photography trip, you know, and
• 16:28
  you and sometimes I'm willing to take to take, you know, a hit on
• 16:34
  the speed for that purpose. For example, that you mentioned
• 16:38
  Iceland trip and 20. Oh my God, I can't.
• 16:41
  But I think it was 2022. I brought my spreadsheet up, but
• 16:46
  I, I did a solo unsupported traverse of Iceland and on that
• 16:51
  one I brought, you know, a GoPro and a bunch of batteries and a
• 16:54
  tripod and I brought my 2 stills cameras and I knew that was
• 16:58
  going to weigh me down and slow me down.
• 17:00
  But I also like, I want to remember this trip for the rest
• 17:03
  of my life and that was a way of capturing it.
• 17:05
  So sometimes it's OK to do that. And, you know, basically that
• 17:12
  the FKT side of things that I love to do, I like to do ones
• 17:14
  that people haven't like I like to do new ones.
• 17:16
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm not very fast.
• 17:19
  So if I'm going slow, what does it matter?
• 17:21
  Yeah, Cost me a few extra hours to be able to record it.
• 17:24
  So. But you're right, it is hard.
• 17:27
  It is hard for, for example, in 2024, I had a really big year
• 17:31
  and I did what was called the Grand Slam.
• 17:33
  Are you familiar with that? Yep, Yep.
• 17:36
  It's like 4 of the oldest hundreds.
• 17:37
  Five of the oldest hundreds. Four of the five original
• 17:40
  hundreds, and everybody finishes at Wasatch and you do them all
• 17:43
  within a span. I think it was like 13 weeks.
• 17:45
  OK, Yeah. Summer months.
• 17:47
  Summer months. Yeah.
• 17:48
  Old Dominion, early June. I did Old Dominion.
• 17:51
  The reason, like I did it, I'm trying to remember what.
• 17:55
  So the reason I did it was because I do Vermont every year,
• 17:58
  and that's one of them. Yeah.
• 17:59
  Old Dominion's easy. You can drive down to it.
• 18:01
  In Virginia, there's no lottery anything.
• 18:04
  You just sign up for it. Yeah, I finally got into Western
• 18:08
  states. Western states.
• 18:09
  I saw that that I wanted to talk about that.
• 18:10
  Years of try. I mean my daughter wasn't even
• 18:14
  born when I ran my first qualifier and she was
• 18:18
  celebrating her. Was it 8th birthday when I ran
• 18:22
  the race? You know?
• 18:24
  That must have been exciting. That was awesome.
• 18:26
  So I'm like, OK, I'm already there.
• 18:28
  And then if you sign up for the Grand Slam, you're and you'd
• 18:30
  finish all the first three, you get a guaranteed entry into
• 18:33
  WASAT. OK, so I was like, why not?
• 18:36
  And we turned it in total road trip, took the minivan, ran
• 18:39
  across the country with the kids.
• 18:41
  So really made made it into an awesome road trip.
• 18:43
  Yeah, but I reason I brought that up was because I brought my
• 18:47
  into 360. Yeah, through the whole thing, I
• 18:50
  probably have 400 clips. I mean, every mile of that race
• 18:53
  I record of all four races I recorded to do an awesome thing.
• 18:57
  But like, I have all this footage and I haven't done
• 19:00
  anything with it, you know? And it's so really hard to know
• 19:03
  like what to do. And I'm like 0360 camera will be
• 19:06
  great 'cause I'll record everything and just decide
• 19:08
  later. But like, that's so much more
• 19:10
  work to do later. Oh my gosh, yeah, that's what.
• 19:12
  Kind of reverted back to the regular action Cam 'cause I just
• 19:14
  can't even decide what to do on the 360 over getting a little.
• 19:17
  I know, I know we should. We should be OK, but.
• 19:20
  It's all good. Yeah, I have an extra raincoat
• 19:23
  if you need it. I got.
• 19:23
  I got. Extra OK, cool.
• 19:26
  Yeah, no, I learned, I learned quickly.
• 19:28
  Like filming on the trails, don't just take everything and
• 19:31
  have to go back 'cause then you're uploading massive files.
• 19:34
  I I can talk to you about all the file storage.
• 19:36
  I'm already. In deep.
• 19:38
  I'm in deep. Oh, that's the worst part.
• 19:39
  By RAID systems and online backup.
• 19:42
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you learn to like control
• 19:46
  your your shutter finger in the moment, it'll save you a lot of
• 19:49
  stress later on. Yeah.
• 19:51
  Yeah, no, that's. I know we're trying to jumping
• 19:54
  all over the place here. I feel like we're sort of out
• 19:56
  of, but I guess that's how just. No, yeah.
• 19:58
  I just love getting, getting kind of your background stuff.
• 20:01
  Yeah, I know. So, so Ian, you should ask about
• 20:03
  Vermont, you know, did the four did that one trying to think
• 20:07
  other ones then a bunch Grindstone Mass and nut and Mogi
• 20:11
  and monster Riverlands. I think I'm up to like 16
• 20:17
  hundreds now. Yeah, that's a lot, that is,
• 20:20
  yeah. If you count like a few
• 20:22
  backyards or 24 hour race. Yeah.
• 20:24
  Oh yeah, definitely. Hamster wheel.
• 20:26
  Yeah, yeah. Oh, I pasted that one last.
• 20:28
  Yeah, yeah. Last I did early on.
• 20:30
  I did early on. It's the only, it's the only win
• 20:33
  in my career. Oh, there you go.
• 20:35
  I think I did 108 in the 24 nice back in the day that wouldn't
• 20:39
  that wouldn't hold hold the candle these days.
• 20:42
  Yeah, things are getting crazy, but that is that's a good one.
• 20:45
  No, that definitely counts. And it it sounds like you're
• 20:47
  someone that could just put down a bunch of miles.
• 20:49
  Yeah, I do Vermont every year to you.
• 20:51
  Just I'm not fast. I just survive.
• 20:54
  I'm a I'm a survivalist, yeah, except that I don't know my way
• 20:58
  around hunting or fishing or any of that stuff.
• 21:00
  But as I always say, it's like, you know, it's like I can just,
• 21:03
  I'll just like outlast whoever's chasing.
• 21:05
  Me. That's the ultra mindset though.
• 21:08
  That's how it usually takes a cake.
• 21:09
  I don't really know. I mean, I, I, you know, I tried,
• 21:14
  I tried to get good training in. It's just really tough.
• 21:16
  I'm just so busy with the kids right now.
• 21:18
  So the hiking is what I love to do.
• 21:24
  And if I could do more of that, that's what I would do.
• 21:26
  My whole thing, I've mentioned this a few times before is like
• 21:28
  I sort of joke. Like I got an ultra running
• 21:31
  'cause like I had to turn my like week long backpacking
• 21:34
  trips, my month long backpacking trips into a week and I had to
• 21:38
  turn my week long trips into a day.
• 21:39
  Yeah, we have less time, so we just gotta do it all now, yeah.
• 21:42
  Exactly. Yeah, so, but I I love it all.
• 21:46
  I love all the distances. I've tried a few marathon, did
• 21:48
  Boston last year but yeah marathons are too hard.
• 21:52
  Yeah, marathons are hard. Harder people.
• 21:55
  Yeah, People always ask me like, oh, you should like marathon
• 21:59
  would be easy for you, or what would your marathon time be
• 22:01
  like? I don't know.
• 22:02
  I would have to train, for which I don't even know if I can do
• 22:04
  that right now. They're hard.
• 22:05
  They're hard. Oh my.
• 22:07
  God, that's funny. So, yeah.
• 22:10
  So, so the guidebooks. So you said you kind of got
• 22:13
  hooked up with the Falcon. Was it the Falcon guides early?
• 22:16
  On did a did a bunch sort of those those dummies guys.
• 22:20
  And like we would they're just all sort of photos throughout.
• 22:22
  And this was back like early on, you could actually make money
• 22:25
  doing these books. I mean, they were giving us 10
• 22:27
  grand a book to to bang out these photos and we did like 15
• 22:31
  of them. Now, like, you know, you're not
• 22:35
  getting 10 grand from writing and shooting a full book and the
• 22:38
  whole course of the books. Existence, you know so.
• 22:42
  But back then it was great and I something that the first one was
• 22:45
  a small one called like best easy day hikes in Vermont.
• 22:50
  Didn't even have any photos in it.
• 22:52
  Tiny little like talking guys. I did one best introduction to
• 22:57
  basic snowshoeing and like I don't even snowshoe really.
• 23:00
  I was like, I mean, really, I think you could sum up
• 23:03
  snowshoeing as like, put the snowshoes on and walk, like,
• 23:07
  really? But they wanted to pay me a
• 23:09
  book. So I'm like, oh, there's all
• 23:11
  these different types of snowshoes and how you get up.
• 23:15
  Yeah. These are like these are things
• 23:16
  to watch for and winter conditions and all this.
• 23:19
  It's funny. But then I started doing the
• 23:21
  real guidebooks, and the first one was, and these are all ones
• 23:25
  they asked me to do. They're not like ones that I
• 23:27
  choose to do. Yeah.
• 23:28
  OK. And so Falcon Guide is like, we
• 23:31
  want to do this one called 100. Oh my God, hiking the waterfall,
• 23:40
  hiking the waterfalls of New England.
• 23:43
  And so I did one there. And again, like, most of these
• 23:49
  waterfalls in New England are roadside.
• 23:51
  Yeah. So I'm like, get out of your car
• 23:54
  and like, circle your car 10 times and then go look at the
• 23:57
  waterfall and you've got, like a quarter mile hiking, you know, I
• 24:01
  mean, it's kind of ridiculous, but there are some nice ones.
• 24:04
  But like, the farthest hike might be like Arithuda Falls,
• 24:07
  you know, there's nothing really far.
• 24:08
  Yeah. But again, it got me out there
• 24:10
  taking pictures all over. Yeah.
• 24:12
  Camping in, camping out and just seeing New England.
• 24:17
  And then the one that sold the most, and it's probably most
• 24:19
  relevant to this pod is the the 4000 footers in New Hampshire.
• 24:23
  Yeah, which they call, they named it.
• 24:26
  I didn't name it. They named it climbing the New
• 24:29
  Hampshire's 4000 Footers. OK, It's not climbing.
• 24:32
  We all know it's hiking. Yeah.
• 24:35
  But you know what? You can't argue with the man.
• 24:37
  You didn't get the last set. You didn't get the last set.
• 24:40
  And I want to be very clear, like as a guidebook author, I am
• 24:45
  not the ultimate authority on these places.
• 24:48
  In fact, most of the places in my guidebooks, not the 4000
• 24:52
  footers, but almost every other one I've been to like once or
• 24:54
  twice, you know, so it's my impression and it's there to
• 24:59
  like, give, give, give people a reason to go the basic
• 25:04
  information. And I and I do think, like the
• 25:07
  place of guidebooks has changed a lot.
• 25:10
  And I don't think Falcons adapted, but I think the place
• 25:13
  of guidebooks has changed a lot. I think it used to be like,
• 25:15
  literally you would need a guidebook to go do a hike.
• 25:18
  Yeah. Right.
• 25:19
  Like that's how you find out about the hike.
• 25:21
  Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.
• 25:22
  Right. But when's the last time you,
• 25:24
  like, wanted to know a Patagon and you took a veen and you took
• 25:27
  up your White Mountains guide and, like, you read the
• 25:29
  description of the hike. Yeah.
• 25:31
  You know, everything's online now.
• 25:33
  So my belief is that guidebook should be more of like a, like a
• 25:40
  something to inspire you to get out there that you can look
• 25:42
  through and be like, oh, that looks fun.
• 25:44
  I wanna go do that. Not something that's you're
• 25:46
  actually bringing with you on a hike.
• 25:48
  And unfortunately, I think the guidebooks that I write best
• 25:51
  because of the format still have that sort of like this is how
• 25:54
  you go do the hike and take your turns.
• 25:55
  And that's fine 'cause you can just take photos of the pages,
• 25:58
  right? You don't need to bring the
• 25:58
  whole book with you. But I do think, I do think books
• 26:03
  are going to more and more need to be something like that's like
• 26:06
  a special object that are so cool and make you want to get
• 26:09
  out there and enjoy it. But it's still great.
• 26:13
  I, you know, I was able to, I did the 4000 footers when I was
• 26:15
  in Mousselaq. I've done a, you know, I've done
• 26:17
  Mousselaq 50 or 100 times, but then I did another round for
• 26:22
  that book, you know? Yeah, that makes sense.
• 26:26
  Yeah. No, that's that is cool.
• 26:27
  And I think you're right. A lot of people like just
• 26:30
  they're going to pull up their map or whatever, that owl trails
• 26:33
  guy, whatever they have. To get rescued in the middle of
• 26:36
  the woods somewhere, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 26:38
  That's funny. And my my girlfriend's always
• 26:40
  showing me hikes on All Trails. I'm like, yeah, get it?
• 26:42
  Don't follow the standard hikes. You got to look at the map and
• 26:45
  see where you're going. But I will say I will give one
• 26:48
  shout out to All Trails because it is like one of the most used
• 26:52
  apps out there. And I do a lot of like right now
• 26:54
  I'm working on the 3rd edition of the Waterfalls book.
• 26:56
  I just handed in the second edition of the of the New
• 26:59
  Hampshire 4000 footers. And when you're looking at
• 27:01
  updating trails and you can't get back out there to do it, you
• 27:04
  can look at people's like people post their trip reports on All
• 27:09
  Trails. You can kind of go through and
• 27:11
  be like, oh, there's this issue that popped up this time of year
• 27:15
  last year. Or another thing you can look at
• 27:17
  is their GPX files. Is it going to be like, oh, is
• 27:19
  it the same one that I published in my book?
• 27:21
  And where is it differ now? Yeah.
• 27:23
  And so. So All Trails have been really
• 27:24
  helpful in like, updating my guidebook.
• 27:26
  Yeah. Sure.
• 27:27
  Like knowing where changes occur even if I'm not using it as like
• 27:30
  a final resource. You know, yeah, I definitely
• 27:32
  have have gone on there and looked for because they do have
• 27:35
  like a, you know, New Hampshire, New England trail conditions.
• 27:37
  They have some sort of condition reports that people can do.
• 27:40
  So that is helpful. One thing that I'm kind of
• 27:43
  starting to deal with or getting a few comments or whatever is
• 27:46
  and the social media is definitely different than guide
• 27:48
  booking. But hey, man, you're blowing up
• 27:51
  this, this spot, you know, keep, you know, we don't want a bunch
• 27:54
  of people coming here and that I feel like back in the day, maybe
• 27:57
  that would have been kind of a guidebook telling people to go
• 28:01
  to certain places. Now it's just like in people's
• 28:03
  feeds, they're just getting spammed to a bunch of people.
• 28:05
  What are your thoughts on that 'cause I, you know, I'm, I kind
• 28:08
  of, you know, I was reflecting and I was like, well, all these
• 28:12
  places are known, the 4000 footers, Pemmi, Prezi, like all
• 28:15
  these, you know, people know about them.
• 28:16
  They're everywhere. Other people are posting about
• 28:18
  them. I'm not the problem.
• 28:20
  But yeah. Have you ever got any like any
• 28:23
  backlash from something like that, like giving away some
• 28:25
  local spot? Not specifically, I don't know
• 28:30
  if there is and I just haven't heard about it because I
• 28:33
  definitely my last book was called 101 Classic Hikes of the
• 28:35
  Northeast. Yeah, you know, but they're
• 28:38
  classic hikes. So like most of them are pretty
• 28:39
  well known, you know, I don't know.
• 28:42
  I mean, that's always been the age-old thing.
• 28:44
  So when we first did the Sierra high route, I don't know if you
• 28:47
  know Andrew Skurka, he's like the godfather of like starting
• 28:52
  like incredible guiding and he he did the first C to C route.
• 28:55
  I mean, he's just an incredible backpacker, but he published
• 28:59
  this. There was this guy, Steve Roper,
• 29:01
  who did a book about this route. You know, and I don't know
• 29:03
  familiar with the Sierra High route, but basically it's a
• 29:06
  North S route along the spine of the Southern Sierra that kind of
• 29:10
  parallels the John Muir Trail. But you stay above 10,000 feet
• 29:13
  almost the whole time. And where the JMT you might go
• 29:16
  over, I think it's like 13 or 14 passes on this one.
• 29:19
  You're going over like 30 passes, but they're much shorter
• 29:23
  because they're higher up. OK.
• 29:25
  But it's a lot of class 3 and a little bit of class 4, like a
• 29:28
  lot of really exposed scrambly stuff and no trail, Right.
• 29:34
  Yeah. So Roper published his book and
• 29:37
  then you had to like little take out your USGS quad maps and, you
• 29:41
  know, and then Skurka published a guide.
• 29:45
  Still. It was like sort of pre digital,
• 29:46
  but you could download all the maps and bring it, you know, and
• 29:49
  made it way more accessible. And people start to get upset.
• 29:52
  I'm like, well, you know what, like, like we want people to be
• 29:57
  able to appreciate this stuff. And yeah, you could, you could
• 29:59
  have this whole NIMBY or, or this whole like this is mind
• 30:02
  secret. But like, how is that benefiting
• 30:04
  humanity? How is that benefiting people?
• 30:07
  You want people to love this thing, You know, when I think
• 30:10
  about like. So anyways, that got really
• 30:13
  popular. Now apparently there is some
• 30:15
  there are some trails back there in the way there weren't.
• 30:17
  Yeah. And we hit it at a great time.
• 30:19
  We hit it during our first time in this year.
• 30:21
  We had a six day stretch. We didn't see another human.
• 30:24
  Wow. Like where?
• 30:25
  Where can you do that? Yeah, it's unheard of.
• 30:27
  You know, it's unbelievable you won't have that anymore.
• 30:31
  But I still think it's worthwhile 'cause it's gets
• 30:34
  people to appreciate our environment, to want to care for
• 30:37
  it, yeah, to want to protect it. And the more places there are,
• 30:41
  the more it spreads out the people, you know?
• 30:42
  And so, like, I just see how the Whites has gone crazy, right?
• 30:47
  You look at like, you know, the Kank on a Saturday in the summer
• 30:52
  parking lot. But then you look at people like
• 30:55
  Phil Karsha, who is creating all sorts of new and interesting
• 31:00
  challenges on the same terrain, or like people who are like
• 31:04
  tracing or what they used to call a redlining.
• 31:07
  Yeah. You know, getting out to all the
• 31:11
  different other corners of it or 52 with the view like I don't
• 31:15
  know, I think it just forces people to like see other things.
• 31:18
  You know, I agree. And I feel like there are there
• 31:22
  are places, especially in the Whites, where everyone knows on
• 31:25
  a holiday weekend, don't go there, don't do this hike.
• 31:28
  But there's when you get off the beaten path, it's like, wait a
• 31:31
  minute, I'm 2 miles from this, but no one's out here.
• 31:33
  And it feels that much more special.
• 31:35
  Yeah, yeah. And there's endless.
• 31:37
  And then you go different days of the week like.
• 31:39
  Totally. Yeah, there's.
• 31:40
  It seems like those big areas are kind of more touristy,
• 31:44
  right? And honestly, you do need some
• 31:46
  of that tourism for obviously these towns are built on it for,
• 31:50
  you know, the people who work there.
• 31:51
  And then just maintaining the state parks, you know, people
• 31:55
  got to pay the state to get them maintained.
• 31:57
  So, yeah, it was just kind of something that I that I've
• 32:00
  encountered recently. And so it's kind of it's.
• 32:02
  Interesting. I mean, like my friend and I did
• 32:03
  this route called the Bailey Range Traverse, which where we
• 32:06
  cross the Olympic Peninsula in Washington and the range that
• 32:11
  goes across, it's like the National Park, Olympic National
• 32:13
  Park, and it's called the Bailey Range.
• 32:14
  And like, it was really hard to find information.
• 32:18
  And then when I public, you know, I, I had a lot of like
• 32:21
  thinking like, and it's like this is sort of like a locals
• 32:23
  known route, whatever. But there's information out
• 32:26
  there. And I'm like, you know what,
• 32:27
  like someone's going to write about it.
• 32:29
  I, I want to share this really cool experience.
• 32:31
  Yeah, it's cool. You know, So, yeah.
• 32:33
  And if you're willing to put yourself out there, like power
• 32:36
  to you. Yeah, right.
• 32:38
  But it is interesting. The context has changed a lot
• 32:40
  since like I started doing photography.
• 32:42
  Like when I started doing photography, I could go take a
• 32:45
  beautiful spot and a beautiful place and it'd be a very unique
• 32:49
  photo. And now they're everywhere,
• 32:51
  everywhere. I know, yeah.
• 32:53
  And so I do think, I do think we're sort of forced into this
• 32:57
  thing where, where it's like, you know, what's going to get
• 32:59
  people now is the storytelling, 'cause you can't just take a
• 33:02
  good photo of a place cause they've all, they've, you know,
• 33:05
  they've all been taken. That's a good point you.
• 33:07
  Could head into like, I'm sure you could head into like, you
• 33:09
  know, the great Gulf on a Saturday and still have a lot of
• 33:13
  solitude. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 33:17
  Just, you know, so no, I don't think, I don't think who am I to
• 33:19
  be the gatekeeper? And then the other thing is
• 33:22
  you're talking about for the economy and I don't know when's
• 33:26
  an appropriate time to talk about this, but you know, I'm
• 33:28
  trying to start this new this company.
• 33:30
  Yeah, no, Wanted to get in the Northeast Trail adventures.
• 33:33
  And so being that there's more and more interest, I think
• 33:37
  hopefully it opens up opportunities for people like us
• 33:40
  to sort of take advantage and share these places in ways that
• 33:43
  are like, you know, responsible and interesting.
• 33:45
  And yeah, well, I think 11 big thing that in the White
• 33:48
  Mountains, the White Mountain endurance races, those have been
• 33:52
  huge, Yeah, bringing Air Viper in like national spotlight to
• 33:56
  some of these races. Some like phenomenal athletes
• 33:59
  building the sport. Yeah.
• 34:01
  I think it's, I think it's all all very, very positive.
• 34:04
  All the stuff that Andrew Drummond's done up there.
• 34:07
  You got Drummond Series coming in, Yeah.
• 34:10
  Phil is another one. He's done a ton for the White
• 34:14
  Mountains community. Yeah, you talked about some
• 34:17
  changes since you started. I was wondering if there are any
• 34:22
  major trails, major changes in the White Mountains that maybe
• 34:27
  some people aren't as aware of 'cause this summer Lincoln was
• 34:30
  shutting down. It's got people thinking, you
• 34:33
  know, what happens if one of these major routes gets
• 34:36
  decommissioned? Are there any like big
• 34:37
  decommissioned trails or peaks or anything like that that you
• 34:41
  not? That I know of.
• 34:43
  I mean, I'm really not the best 1.
• 34:45
  You know, every time before writing these things, I go into
• 34:47
  the mountain wander and, like, talk to Steve Smith.
• 34:49
  Yeah, we just go through the list and he'd like, help me
• 34:52
  know. Yeah.
• 34:54
  What's up. So I'm not the best person to
• 34:58
  know. Obviously the changes are sort
• 34:59
  of Rd. access, like the Wild River Rd. being closed has
• 35:04
  changed things. And the one for Kerrigan was
• 35:07
  that Sawyer? Sawyer River, Sawyer Pond,
• 35:10
  Sawyer River Rd. Yeah, one of them.
• 35:13
  You know, and so that stuff changes things.
• 35:15
  Obviously we're having a lot more erosion and then, you know,
• 35:17
  there's always like the ammo has changed recently, there's some
• 35:21
  changes on the bridle path. There's a few things here and
• 35:23
  there that you just have to sort of be aware of, but nothing
• 35:27
  major that I can think. Of, you know, I mean, that's the
• 35:30
  point with the Lincolnwood shutdown, like they're being
• 35:33
  proactive, going to save the trail and then it should be, you
• 35:36
  know, good so. It'll be interesting.
• 35:38
  I think it'll be. I think it'll be a fun time to
• 35:40
  go in there because you're like, nobody's going to be over there.
• 35:43
  Yeah, You know, I mean, I can't. Is it going to be, are you going
• 35:47
  to still be able to connect like if like Osseo to the Bond Cliff
• 35:51
  trail? What I heard, yes.
• 35:53
  What I've heard is yes, you you are able to do that.
• 35:56
  So I mean, yeah, opens up. You can still do a Pemi loop
• 35:59
  from other areas. People from Alice Head are going
• 36:02
  to be like, how did you get here?
• 36:03
  Tell me, you know, it's going to be yeah, kind of a cool,
• 36:06
  different summer. Yeah, one of my first FKTS was I
• 36:10
  did the ice. I was afraid.
• 36:12
  People have like destroyed the time now, but where you hit all
• 36:14
  the fourteen 4000 footers in the penny?
• 36:17
  The penny, the Super. Penny yeah, you go down.
• 36:19
  Can't remember what I called at the time.
• 36:21
  I just think I called out like all 14.
• 36:22
  I think super is what they called it without AL's head or
• 36:25
  something. Oh, OK.
• 36:25
  OK, so yours is the four, I think it's still on the FKT
• 36:28
  website. Is the fourteen 4000 footers in
• 36:30
  the pair or whatever? But that's fine, because you go
• 36:32
  down Lincoln Slide, you know, and yeah, and pop up to AL's
• 36:36
  head. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:39
  I don't know if you want to. Do you want to talk at all about
• 36:41
  the Northeast Trail Adventures? Yeah, let's get into it.
• 36:43
  I'm very, I'm also getting into the space of, you know.
• 36:47
  I have the. The brand run mountain peaks.
• 36:50
  So I there are a few things that I I see when you're doing like,
• 36:53
  oh, this guy, you know, trying to start something here and with
• 36:56
  the Scutney last year. I mean that was a massive for,
• 37:00
  you know, the I don't you could probably speak to it better of
• 37:03
  how much publicity it got. You did a piece in Ultra Runner
• 37:06
  Magazine, which is cool, and that's obviously put you guys on
• 37:11
  the map. So talk a little bit about that
• 37:12
  race and starting it out. I mean, you, you had a great
• 37:14
  interview with Connor, so I don't need to go over every last
• 37:18
  little thing, but just a brief overview.
• 37:22
  Last year, my friend and I, Justin Chapman, started new
• 37:24
  business, Northeast Trail Adventures, and we decided to
• 37:27
  launch it with two events, one of which was a trail running
• 37:31
  retreat up in Gorham, NH. And I'd love to talk more about
• 37:35
  that because we're still, we still have, we we're still open.
• 37:38
  We've got signups open. And it's gonna be absolutely
• 37:41
  insane. It's coming up, incredible,
• 37:43
  coming up soon. But we had it last year and had
• 37:45
  great guests, including David Sinclair as one of our leaders
• 37:50
  and Alyssa Godeski and just like Hilary Mccloy, just awesome
• 37:54
  people. Yeah.
• 37:56
  And that one financially didn't go great, but we learned a lot.
• 38:00
  And then the second idea was a race that had been going around
• 38:03
  in my head for years. I live at the base amount of
• 38:06
  Scotney and, you know, as we all are, we're getting into these
• 38:11
  vertical backyard, the backyard races.
• 38:15
  And I'm like, well, wouldn't it? And there are a lot of different
• 38:17
  like, like Jason's magnificent bastards and, you know, the the
• 38:23
  the last skier standing. But I thought it'd be cool to to
• 38:27
  structure one around instead of 100 miles every 24 hours as
• 38:33
  being the goal, doing an Everest every 24 hours.
• 38:38
  And I threw this, I sort of bounced the idea across some
• 38:42
  friends, like especially Will Peterson and Joffrey Peters.
• 38:46
  And we were chatting and we were both, we were all like, Joffrey
• 38:49
  thought I could go longer. But Will was like, yeah, 24
• 38:51
  hours are gonna be tough, you know?
• 38:53
  And this is coming from like one of the best athletes in the
• 38:55
  world. I'm like, OK, OK, I like, I like
• 38:59
  this like, and so we, we launched a thing and we had no
• 39:03
  sign ups at all, like March, April, whatever.
• 39:06
  Nobody really knew about it. And then I'm going to give a
• 39:09
  huge shout out to Amber Constant because she started coming over
• 39:15
  and training on the hill. She had signed up for it, heard
• 39:17
  about or actually she hadn't signed up for it, but she had
• 39:19
  heard about it, started training on the hill, started bringing
• 39:22
  people over, getting people excited about it, Will mentioned
• 39:26
  on his podcast. And next thing we need
• 39:28
  September, October. It's a thing filled up
• 39:30
  completely and it filled up with like really great athlete.
• 39:34
  Oh yeah, there were sluggers on that list.
• 39:36
  Yeah, I remember looking. So we were, you know, we were
• 39:38
  like OK, so this is at the base amount of Skyny.
• 39:41
  One of the things that makes our race unique is you have two
• 39:44
  options every hour. You can either do 3 short loops
• 39:49
  or one long loop. They both equal 2.25 miles with
• 39:54
  12109 vertical feet of climbing. And we had some fun races in the
• 39:58
  middle. We had the cash lap, which Lyle
• 39:59
  won. He went for the vert gobbler
• 40:02
  too, but he missed it by I think 1 because he was doing the cash.
• 40:05
  Lap or whatever he wanted. He could have kept on going,
• 40:08
  yeah. Sure, sure, sure.
• 40:10
  Who got it? Yeah, he he left after 24 hours.
• 40:13
  If Lao wanted to go 25 hours, yeah.
• 40:16
  But yeah, he wanted the $100 more, so yeah.
• 40:19
  It makes sense. It was funny.
• 40:21
  They held $100 over to the finish line and they grabbed as
• 40:24
  they. Can't go.
• 40:25
  That's cool. So anyways, so, yeah, so we so
• 40:28
  we had a bunt and then with the vert Galbra, which is like extra
• 40:31
  distance you could add on it's like extra 180 vert each lap and
• 40:34
  you pull a card from a deck never ends up with the most
• 40:38
  guess the thing. But we had all these great
• 40:39
  people sign up and we were guessing, you know, 36 hours
• 40:43
  would be like Max, you know, we're talking like an Everest
• 40:47
  and 1/2 that non-stop. Yeah, you know, and when we get
• 40:52
  to 37 hours, Lance and Tori and Lance Parker, who's a great
• 40:58
  athlete, and Tori Constantine, who's got the Long Trail FKT.
• 41:01
  Yeah, incredible athletes. They, they left at 37.
• 41:04
  They could have gone more. And they like sort of pulled
• 41:06
  out. And we're like, oh, like we're
• 41:08
  pretty close to our estimate. There's only four people left
• 41:10
  and we're at 37 hours. Little did we know.
• 41:14
  Little did you know, yeah. So Seth Richardson, who I'd
• 41:18
  never heard of, he made it 50. Yeah, I think Amber went on to
• 41:22
  66 hours and then the epic battle between Connor and Bill.
• 41:29
  Connor, who's like young Don, you know, really finding his
• 41:34
  footing in his backyard scene and just, I mean, didn't he?
• 41:38
  I think he just won Wapak. Wapak and back, 50 mile or yeah,
• 41:43
  crushed it. Almost got a course record.
• 41:45
  Yeah, just really awesome. And Bill Ted, who's like one of
• 41:48
  the greatest athletes of all time, who's got the overall 4000
• 41:52
  footers record at the age of 60, and he's 63 now.
• 41:55
  Yeah, so though, I mean, those two efforts alone is insane.
• 42:01
  In his 60s. When it went 90 hours, I had to
• 42:04
  change our whole thing. It's the weekend before
• 42:05
  Thanksgiving and so we are planning on the Philly on
• 42:07
  Tuesday and I can't. We ended up going like down on
• 42:10
  Thanksgiving Day basically. Yeah, yeah, your whole park got
• 42:13
  ruined. And I remember I would just, I
• 42:15
  think I just got on Instagram or made an Instagram for Run
• 42:18
  Mountain Peaks. And I had commented something
• 42:20
  along the lines of talk about your business.
• 42:22
  I was like, great business plan, you know, put on an epic race,
• 42:26
  invite a bunch of sluggers. Yeah, bad business plan, no
• 42:29
  finish line, right? Because you guys were right.
• 42:31
  You guys are sitting there canceling things like this.
• 42:33
  We didn't tell him there was a finish line.
• 42:35
  It's just going to go forever. That being sad, I mean, you know
• 42:38
  how to end it at 40 hours. It wouldn't have been what it
• 42:40
  was. Yeah.
• 42:41
  I mean, it's they turned it into something extraordinary.
• 42:44
  Yeah. I mean, I think when you think
• 42:46
  about some of the big backyard races getting a ton of
• 42:49
  publicity, I mean, Nash, like some of these things are blowing
• 42:52
  up last year, standings blowing up.
• 42:54
  You're kind of one of the first vertical backyards that could be
• 42:58
  like the staple. Totally.
• 42:59
  Like you're saying, Oh my, what's the capital of the world?
• 43:02
  My wife was like, she's like, you got to buy
• 43:04
  verticalbackyard.com. Yeah.
• 43:05
  And so I did during the race. I bought that.
• 43:09
  During the race, but we're on to something new.
• 43:12
  Again, like, I just think it blew up during the race.
• 43:14
  We had no idea. You know, we are not social
• 43:16
  media savvy and weren't really posting very much.
• 43:19
  And then during the race, Justin started posting.
• 43:22
  Yeah. And it took on a life of its own
• 43:25
  over the last like 2 1/2 days. We got 350,000 views, Yeah, for
• 43:29
  the race. That's coming from nothing,
• 43:31
  coming from absolutely nothing. And during the race, we like
• 43:36
  people like you guys, check this out.
• 43:38
  The the new single track podcast came out and they were talking
• 43:42
  about our race as it was going on, you know, and we're like,
• 43:45
  what the hell is going on here? And like newspapers were coming.
• 43:49
  And so it was, it was just epic. And like, I do hope that it
• 43:55
  getting checked and detecting for ticks.
• 43:56
  I pulled off so many ticks recently.
• 43:57
  They're getting bad. You know, I do hope that it goes
• 44:02
  long. And now last year we were, we
• 44:04
  were very fortunate to have like incredible weather.
• 44:07
  Yeah. When late November on a
• 44:08
  mountain, you have no idea what you're getting.
• 44:10
  Yeah. So who knows?
• 44:12
  But I think we're I think we're gearing up.
• 44:15
  We've already got some heavy hitters signed up this year.
• 44:16
  Oh yeah, we're gearing up for WE.
• 44:19
  Were talking before Connor Lucas.
• 44:21
  That's a 22. I mean, the backyard guys in the
• 44:24
  White Mountains that have just been winning every event.
• 44:27
  Well, three of the top 4. Seth Richardson's back.
• 44:30
  Yeah, Amber is back. I don't think she's going to
• 44:32
  compete in the same way because she has another larger goal.
• 44:35
  World record going on. Yeah, but three of the top four
• 44:38
  are back, plus Lucas, you know, plus Chris.
• 44:43
  I mean, there's just Lance. There's great, yeah, great.
• 44:46
  And we're about half full now. So sign up.
• 44:49
  We're half a year ahead and we're already half full.
• 44:52
  Yeah, we've increased the number this year.
• 44:53
  We're going to have between 90 and 100 awesome this year.
• 44:58
  But yeah, so anyways, that blew up.
• 45:00
  And so this is where we are in the business now.
• 45:03
  We talked about sort of the business and trying to, we're
• 45:06
  doing the retreat again. And so June 5th through 8th up
• 45:12
  at Hub North in Gorham, NH, it's a running and hiking retreat for
• 45:16
  all abilities. And that's the whole thing.
• 45:18
  It's like, it's not just for crushers.
• 45:20
  It's like for anyone that just wants to spend time out in the
• 45:22
  whites and you know, the whites. And we have enough guy, we have
• 45:26
  enough leaders where we're, we can split it up and have
• 45:30
  multiple trips each day. And this year we've got like, me
• 45:33
  and Justin again and Ada, his daughter, who's a great, like,
• 45:38
  collegiate athlete and has like the double.
• 45:41
  She set the double Pemi record the age of 15.
• 45:44
  Wow, wow. You know, and then we have
• 45:46
  Alyssa Godesky, Hilary Mccloy, and then of course, Jeff
• 45:51
  Garmeier, who has the current Appalachian Trail record.
• 45:54
  He's one of our one of our one of our leaders.
• 46:00
  We've got Jim Anderson, who's an incredible triathlon coach and
• 46:03
  lives up there, and Phil Karsha coming in for a day.
• 46:05
  So we've got great people. Yeah, at this retreat and all
• 46:09
  the food. Incredible location, just
• 46:11
  minutes from some of the best trail heads.
• 46:13
  And it's awesome. So Northeast Trail
• 46:16
  adventures.com. Sweet.
• 46:17
  Go check it. Out.
• 46:19
  On this retreat, so I haven't been on let's say a retreat.
• 46:23
  Are you doing like, you know, you have coaches there, you have
• 46:26
  athletes, you have different people?
• 46:28
  Are you doing like sessions where, hey, this is going to be
• 46:31
  a fast trail run, This is going to be a a, you know, a backpack
• 46:34
  overnight. Like, what's the retreat like
• 46:36
  for people who go? You know, we, we we're just
• 46:38
  being flexible. We'll see who's there.
• 46:40
  Yeah, we'll see what the. I mean, the weather dictates so
• 46:43
  much. Obviously, in a perfect world,
• 46:45
  we get them up into the Prezis. Yeah, right.
• 46:47
  We're right there. Last year, what we did, it was a
• 46:51
  slightly different format, but our big day was we just went up.
• 46:54
  We just started from Cabs Ridge and went up Cabs Ridge show
• 46:57
  because you're at 3000 feet to start.
• 46:59
  Yeah, You hit tree line one mile in.
• 47:02
  Awesome. And so why not, right?
• 47:03
  You're up there. Then we did a loop out to Clay
• 47:05
  and back. This year, I think we might head
• 47:08
  out to to Adams and back, or just head down to Adams and go
• 47:11
  to Appalachia or something. Yeah, other idea.
• 47:14
  We we do Mount Crescent, which is over there in the Randolph
• 47:18
  Pass and that the whole area is super special.
• 47:20
  Like we're right there in the Randolph Pass all by the
• 47:22
  Randolph Mountain Club and between that area north of Route
• 47:27
  2 and then all the waterfalls and stuff at Appalachia and
• 47:30
  they're great. Run in.
• 47:33
  I'm hoping if we can squeeze it in.
• 47:35
  I love the ball face ball face circle South ball face one of my
• 47:39
  favorite peaks and the Whites take them up there and because
• 47:43
  this year we're doing a weekend last year we did a weekday is
• 47:45
  trying to avoid the crowds. We realize it's harder to get
• 47:47
  people on weekdays. So this year we're doing Friday
• 47:50
  night through Monday afternoon and if you know, if if we have
• 47:55
  great weather all the time, maybe we'll hit ball faces on
• 47:57
  the weekend and try to hit the Prezi on Monday.
• 47:59
  You know, we'll just see by. But it's awesome.
• 48:02
  We're totally flexible. We're going to talk, you know,
• 48:05
  trail running tips. Hillary's a physical therapist.
• 48:08
  We're going to hear incredible stories of people hear how
• 48:11
  Alyssa's recovered from these different injuries.
• 48:14
  And you know, Alyssa has like the 4000 footers record and the
• 48:18
  Adirondacks record and the long show record, and Jeff had the
• 48:21
  long show record and Arizona record and that, you know, I
• 48:24
  mean, these people have stories, stories and stories, you know,
• 48:27
  and I have years of being out here and you know, what it's
• 48:31
  like to how you can make the most of training 6 to 8 hours a
• 48:36
  week and having a family and kids and still going out and
• 48:38
  enjoying incredible adventures, you know?
• 48:41
  Yeah, no, this stuff is for everybody.
• 48:45
  No, that. So that's, that's awesome.
• 48:46
  I want to ask, where do you see this going?
• 48:49
  Where do you see the Northeast Trail adventures?
• 48:51
  Like your business? Are you trying to do races?
• 48:54
  Are you trying to do like, are you think these are going to be
• 48:57
  your two main events? Are you thinking of other
• 48:59
  events? Like where?
• 49:00
  What's the whole vision long term?
• 49:02
  That's a good question. You have suggestions?
• 49:06
  I don't know. I mean, I'm like, so here's the
• 49:09
  photography thing, right? Like I love the photography,
• 49:11
  whatever. But like I've been doing the
• 49:13
  same job now for 20 years and I'm basically shooting speakers
• 49:18
  at Dartmouth, you know, that kind of stuff.
• 49:19
  And so I'm much less passionate about that than I am about this
• 49:25
  stuff right now. Like I love the community.
• 49:29
  I love. I love what it takes to push
• 49:31
  yourself. I love being out in nature.
• 49:34
  Like everything there is about ultra running and backpacking I
• 49:36
  love. And so how can I make that more
• 49:39
  sustainable for me and become a greater part of my, my life?
• 49:42
  And so the retreat we'll see. I mean, financially that has yet
• 49:47
  to pan out, but I think in this era of like spending more and
• 49:51
  more time like talking to our computers and staring at our
• 49:54
  computers and phones like these in person, times where you're
• 49:59
  in, it's like it you're sharing time in credible places with
• 50:03
  people who are passionate about the same thing as like, yeah,
• 50:06
  it's hard to overstate the importance of that right now.
• 50:08
  Definitely, I agree. And even the backyard is like,
• 50:11
  you know, on one hand you're like, what a stupid freaking
• 50:14
  format. You know, I'm literally on my
• 50:16
  way down to go run circles in Connecticut over the weekend for
• 50:19
  no reason whatsoever. But you know, when I'm running
• 50:25
  Vermont 100, I might have five hours where I'm just running by
• 50:28
  myself in the dark with nobody there.
• 50:30
  And on these backyards, there's always somebody there.
• 50:33
  It's all about community and supporting each other.
• 50:36
  And, and last year, you know, we had 75 runners.
• 50:41
  Over half of them made it 12 hours to the Mount Whitney mark,
• 50:45
  meaning they all made it. Over half of the runners made it
• 50:49
  14,000 feet in one go of vertical gain.
• 50:52
  Like that's a. Ton, it's ridiculous.
• 50:55
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 50:55
  And that's half the runners over a quarter. 20 of the 75 did a
• 50:59
  full Mount Everest. Yeah, non-stop, up and down.
• 51:02
  I don't think half these people would have done it had the other
• 51:05
  people not been there. Yeah.
• 51:07
  Yeah. To support and to help and to
• 51:09
  encourage. I saw so much of that and like,
• 51:11
  I love that. So if I can foster that
• 51:13
  community, great. I mean, you know, obviously the
• 51:18
  easiest would be sort of to increase the size of the
• 51:21
  vertical backyard. But being at November, we just
• 51:24
  didn't want to get a 10 out yet. We want to see how it go.
• 51:27
  We have a, we have a bad weather year and see how it is first.
• 51:29
  So we're limited by the size of the facility that we have.
• 51:34
  I have another race that that I'm planning at Mount Escutney.
• 51:41
  We're running sort of a just a fun run through with friends to
• 51:46
  see how it goes. But I think that would be
• 51:48
  another race. And then, yeah, I'd love to do.
• 51:51
  I mean, I think everyone agrees there needs to be a good 200 up
• 51:58
  in the Northeast. Yeah, well, there's one coming
• 52:00
  to Maine, which I heard, which is going to be.
• 52:02
  That'll be awesome. But it is.
• 52:05
  It's a hall. I mean, to drive that far from
• 52:07
  New York is also almost the same as driving to North Carolina
• 52:10
  from New York. Yeah, You know what I mean?
• 52:12
  It's a good point. So I think that's awesome.
• 52:15
  But if we could have something in Vermont and New Hampshire,
• 52:18
  the problem is. Seems like you're in a good spot
• 52:20
  for it the. Problem is the the AT right and.
• 52:23
  It's because. It's you know, it's what
• 52:25
  happened. It's it's don't get me wrong,
• 52:27
  Jigger Johnson is awesome and like I'm they sold out.
• 52:32
  That is like an incredibly difficult race, but I'm sure if
• 52:37
  they could, it would be not now and back.
• 52:39
  It'd be a point to point. Yeah.
• 52:41
  Because you just can't. You just can't cross the AT at
• 52:45
  all in any races here. And everything crosses the AT.
• 52:48
  That's good in the Northeast. That is a good point.
• 52:51
  I mean, permitting is like the biggest, you know, drawback,
• 52:54
  which I think is why they had that Jigger Johnson.
• 52:57
  And they're all like, well, we have this, let's just go out and
• 52:59
  back to make it the 100. Totally.
• 53:02
  Still, I think it's still epic though that is, I think that was
• 53:04
  an awesome thing to come. 100% yeah.
• 53:07
  It's a great, I mean, it's a great one and like, I'm excited
• 53:10
  to try it someday. I'm scared.
• 53:11
  Yeah, should be. So yeah, 11 route I thought
• 53:15
  could be kind of neat. It's not our neck of the woods,
• 53:17
  but is, you know, I've done the FKT, I've done a bunch of
• 53:21
  different FKTS and then we can talk about that if you want.
• 53:24
  But one of them, one of them was a NS trail, which goes across
• 53:27
  Rhode Island. One of them was the Mid State
• 53:30
  Trail, which goes across Massachusetts and then that
• 53:33
  connects with the Wapak trail. And so you could go from north
• 53:37
  pack or north, what's it called? PAC Monadnock to the ocean in
• 53:43
  Rhode Island, all connected. And that's almost exactly 200,
• 53:46
  just under 200. And there's already a race on
• 53:49
  Wapak, There's already a race on Mid State.
• 53:52
  So you know that at least over half of it's feasible.
• 53:55
  Doable, doable already. OK.
• 53:57
  So I'm thinking like, you know, that could be a really fun one
• 53:59
  and it's really cool. Like, you know, going through
• 54:02
  three States and ending on the beach.
• 54:04
  Yeah, that'd be pretty dope. That is cool.
• 54:06
  That'd be one marketing like definitely marketable.
• 54:09
  This at the end of the beach 2, you're near Boston, so you're
• 54:11
  going to be like, 'cause Sedona has that vibe, the Arizona,
• 54:15
  they're kind of like Cocodono vibe to it.
• 54:17
  If you get a big 200, I bet that would that would be cool.
• 54:20
  May. Sell out quick.
• 54:22
  Like yeah, I mean, it's crazy, you know, I got into Coco Dona
• 54:25
  this year, but I was just like, it's so expensive to fly out
• 54:29
  there and to pay these race fees and whatever if there can be
• 54:32
  like more affordable options, yeah, you know, so anyway, so
• 54:36
  that's an idea. You know, the backyards are
• 54:39
  always easy and one place we thought would be a fun would be
• 54:44
  almost perfect elevation wise would be gun stock.
• 54:47
  Yeah, doing over there. I love gun stock.
• 54:49
  And I don't know it very well. That's obviously like Bill's
• 54:52
  stomping ground. You, you know, much better.
• 54:55
  But I think it's right around 1200.
• 54:57
  Like, yeah, right up the thing. And and our idea with with with
• 55:02
  the backyard was like to standardize it.
• 55:04
  I think they should. I think the distance should
• 55:07
  always be between two and three miles, OK.
• 55:09
  And the vert should always be 12 O nine.
• 55:11
  Yeah. You know, so if it's shorter,
• 55:13
  it's going to be steeper, and if it's longer, it'll be.
• 55:16
  Yeah, just slightly different challenges.
• 55:18
  Yeah. So I think it'd be kind of cool
• 55:19
  to have like a standardization of that.
• 55:21
  Yeah. The one I'm doing this weekend
• 55:23
  is called Run, Run Ragged Last person Standing.
• 55:28
  Yeah. And it's like halfway between.
• 55:29
  It's like a 5K loop with 500 vert each loop.
• 55:33
  Yeah. So like, you know, a little bit
• 55:36
  shorter and steeper than than Bubba's definitely shorter and
• 55:41
  steeper than a traditional one, less steep and longer than mine.
• 55:44
  So it kind of had, there's all this sort of like this grade
• 55:47
  variation. You decrease the distance.
• 55:49
  Yeah. But the whole like using Everest
• 55:51
  as a measuring point, Yeah, I think is a.
• 55:54
  That's awesome, man. I think it's a good standard.
• 55:56
  Like the perfect standard, Yeah. Has have any sponsors reached
• 56:01
  out for the Scutney race or are you reaching out to people that
• 56:03
  say I really? Need to.
• 56:04
  That's a good point. I'm like, I'm just so bad at
• 56:07
  this marketing thing. I'm so bad.
• 56:09
  Yeah. I I don't even know how people
• 56:11
  go about it. Yeah, I'm.
• 56:12
  Working on a pitch deck, I, I definitely want to because I
• 56:15
  think what what would appeal to sponsors if you're a sponsor, if
• 56:19
  you, if you have an opportunity to sponsor a race.
• 56:22
  Or just have money of any kind. Yeah, yeah, if you're, if you
• 56:25
  want to just pay for my life, please do so and also give money
• 56:32
  towards Amber's effort so she can continue.
• 56:38
  Yeah. So we've, we have a couple OPS
• 56:40
  local option local. There's a local sponsor that
• 56:43
  agreed to do some for the race. Yeah.
• 56:46
  Obviously, what makes this appealing to sponsors is that
• 56:50
  it's getting so much social media play.
• 56:52
  Like we didn't know any. Like I can pretty much guarantee
• 56:54
  we'll hit over half a million views this year.
• 56:56
  Yeah, given that we knew nothing last year and we hit 350,000.
• 57:00
  Yeah. And we're going to dedicate a
• 57:02
  person to social media this year.
• 57:04
  Yeah. Why?
• 57:05
  And the fact that it goes on so long, right?
• 57:07
  Like that's you're putting your sponsor's name in front of the,
• 57:11
  the, the people for four days straight.
• 57:14
  Yeah. Right.
• 57:15
  I think when you compare it, This is why some of the two
• 57:17
  hundreds get a lot of hype. Some of the backyard races get a
• 57:19
  lot of hype. Yeah.
• 57:20
  You just have so many opportunities to check in
• 57:23
  totally. Whereas if you're doing like the
• 57:24
  Jigger Johnson, which obviously is a big race, so maybe it's a
• 57:27
  bad example, but if there's just five aid stations right, you
• 57:30
  that's just like that's 10. You need to either get content
• 57:33
  that goes 10 times more views. So it is kind of like a good
• 57:37
  little, a good little thing to think about or a good thing to
• 57:40
  sponsor people. And Andrew?
• 57:42
  You know, during Bubba, he did like a live Instagram Live
• 57:46
  thing, and that'll be fun. Like we could do like I thought
• 57:48
  like Sunday morning, we could sort of do a live with people
• 57:50
  that just left or yeah, yeah, who's going to go far and like
• 57:55
  bring people into the discussion.
• 57:56
  Yeah, it's definitely. I feel like you had it too.
• 57:58
  You, you cured it out of nowhere last year.
• 58:02
  So even with more strategic, yeah, this year should be
• 58:05
  awesome. So we'll see.
• 58:06
  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I would love, you know,
• 58:07
  and I'd love to bring in sponsors that that I don't think
• 58:09
  they all have to be like running sponsors either.
• 58:11
  They could be like local businesses, Yeah.
• 58:14
  And that kind of stuff. Darn Tough Socks put $30,000 on
• 58:18
  one of the races this year. Did they really?
• 58:20
  Yeah. I was like, that's, you know, Oh
• 58:22
  my God. Obviously they are, you know,
• 58:23
  you can use them in your races and running and stuff, but I
• 58:26
  think that's smart, Yeah. They can see that's true out to
• 58:28
  Mount the Coast because I feel like they're they're like, what
• 58:31
  was it like 6 of the top 10 runners at Coca Donut and Mount
• 58:34
  the Coast on and they sponsored, you know, Jeff and Lila who who
• 58:43
  was at our race, you know, she's sponsored by them and yeah,
• 58:46
  Pedona and so I don't know. And I love their shoes.
• 58:49
  Yeah. I've I've been basically talked
• 58:52
  into my next pair is going to be a mount to coast pair, so.
• 58:55
  They're great. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm
• 58:57
  still an Ultra guy when it comes when it comes to it, you'll most
• 59:00
  likely find me on trails with Ultra.
• 59:02
  Yeah, yeah, that's funny. Let's talk about some of your FK
• 59:06
  TS. I know you've talked about some
• 59:08
  before. I tried to hit some of the stuff
• 59:09
  that you maybe haven't hit on other podcasts before, but one
• 59:13
  of the ones I did want to highlight is the triple Infinity
• 59:16
  loop. So tell us about the Triple
• 59:18
  Infinity loop. Give us the stats and how how it
• 59:22
  went. It's a gnarly.
• 59:23
  One. Yeah, that was the most recent
• 59:25
  one. And if you want to find out like
• 59:27
  if you want to get deeper into it, I just didn't or just was
• 59:30
  released podcast on the FKT. The FKT, yeah.
• 59:33
  All about that particular route, but basically it's taking three
• 59:38
  big loops in the whites, two of which were kind of established
• 59:41
  already, the Evans notch loop, yeah, which hits like the bald
• 59:46
  faces, which I love, as I mentioned before, the meters and
• 59:51
  then Royce and then you go across into main and hit.
• 59:57
  Is it Speckled Mountain? My brain is.
• 1:00:00
  I'm not as familiar with that over there, but it sounds.
• 1:00:01
  Right down like, you know, Blueberry Mountain and
• 1:00:04
  Crossover. So there's a big loop there.
• 1:00:07
  There's a Wild River loop, which is, you know, surrounding the
• 1:00:12
  Wild River Wilderness. And that's, you know, the Carter
• 1:00:16
  Mariah, Yeah. And the backside of that Ridge,
• 1:00:19
  backside of that range and then coming around the side, you
• 1:00:22
  know. And then, of course, the other
• 1:00:24
  big loop is sort of a northern Prezi loop.
• 1:00:26
  And so one thing that's awesome about it is it's like, I think
• 1:00:30
  it's like 77 miles trying to remember what the vert was.
• 1:00:34
  I don't have all the stats. On 20 something 25 maybe 25,000.
• 1:00:38
  It was a lot. Might be a little under that,
• 1:00:40
  but it's a lot. It's a lot of vert, but you
• 1:00:43
  know, you cross 16 a couple times.
• 1:00:47
  You cross the one in Maine, I think it's called 113 maybe or
• 1:00:51
  yeah. Anyways, you cross roads a
• 1:00:53
  number of times. So it's a great option for like
• 1:00:55
  a supported effort for, you know, if you need a resupply,
• 1:01:00
  self supported. But you're all and it's got some
• 1:01:03
  really popular like above tree lamp sections and some super
• 1:01:06
  remote sections. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:08
  I started at Dolly Cop, went up Daniel Webster Trail, do the you
• 1:01:14
  do Madison Adams, Jefferson, Washington, and then you come
• 1:01:20
  down Glen Boulder. This is how I did it.
• 1:01:24
  You can go and you can go to any direction in any loop first.
• 1:01:26
  That's how I did it because I could like it was a safe place
• 1:01:29
  to keep my car and you could camp out at Dolly Cop and then
• 1:01:34
  went. So the first day was starting
• 1:01:38
  Dolly Cop did the Northern Prezis down Glen Boulder, up
• 1:01:42
  then to the Wildcats, down into Carter Notch.
• 1:01:45
  And from there, I can't remember the name of the trails because
• 1:01:48
  there's so many trails connected.
• 1:01:49
  Yeah, but you kind of go into the Wild River and and I went up
• 1:01:52
  to I think it was called like, Oh my God, I'm so blank in the
• 1:01:55
  name, like blue, blue stream or blue something.
• 1:01:59
  OK up near the sort of the the Ridge on the Evans Notch Loop.
• 1:02:04
  Yeah. So that was a long day.
• 1:02:06
  That was a big one. Camp there.
• 1:02:08
  Next day did the Evans Notch Loop.
• 1:02:10
  You crossed into Maine and it was really dry.
• 1:02:12
  End of the summer was so dry last summer.
• 1:02:14
  Yeah. So really struggled with that go
• 1:02:18
  over the ball face come back down in into the wild river.
• 1:02:21
  And then I just stayed in a shelter at the old wild River
• 1:02:24
  campground, which is now defunct because the road is washed out.
• 1:02:28
  But I was still a a platform there.
• 1:02:30
  And then I came up over and did the you do the the the Mariah
• 1:02:35
  Carter's and pop down into Carter not shot and then out 19
• 1:02:41
  mile. Finish Finish where you started.
• 1:02:43
  Finish where you started. Yeah.
• 1:02:44
  So it's it's awesome. There's almost no you can go.
• 1:02:47
  You can do any loop in any direction.
• 1:02:49
  There's a couple of spots to resupply.
• 1:02:51
  You get incredible views, remote sections, popular sections,
• 1:02:57
  definitely some stream crossings that could be big if there was
• 1:03:00
  some water. But there was no water last
• 1:03:03
  year. Yeah.
• 1:03:04
  Just like just an awesome tour of the whole eastern side of the
• 1:03:09
  White Mountain. Yeah.
• 1:03:10
  And like we talked about some, so you get some popular stuff
• 1:03:12
  and you get some lesser known stuff, some quieter stuff, Yeah.
• 1:03:16
  That was a gnarly effort. I really recommend.
• 1:03:18
  I didn't do it super fast. I bonked.
• 1:03:21
  I was training for something else.
• 1:03:22
  This last year's been all about me planning for efforts and
• 1:03:27
  failing over the last like 12 months, but you know, so be it.
• 1:03:32
  But I was using that as a training thing.
• 1:03:34
  So I think I ended up being like 50 something hours on that for
• 1:03:39
  70 something miles. So not fast, but I took it as a
• 1:03:41
  camping. I camped.
• 1:03:42
  I had slept a couple nights and but it was awesome.
• 1:03:46
  So that was a big one. Another one listeners here might
• 1:03:50
  like I did a number of years ago.
• 1:03:51
  I call I called it the live free or die route.
• 1:03:54
  Yeah, yeah, I saw that. So that.
• 1:03:57
  Was sort of like my alternate alternative to the Long Trail
• 1:04:01
  for New Hampshire. Yeah.
• 1:04:03
  So I started at the mass New Hampshire border on the New
• 1:04:08
  Hampshire Master New Hampshire Metacomic Mananac Trail.
• 1:04:13
  Take that up to Mananac. From there you can take the
• 1:04:16
  Manana Sunnapede Greenway to Sunnapede.
• 1:04:19
  From there you can get on the Sunnapede Ragged.
• 1:04:22
  What's it called? Sunnapede, Ragged Kearsarge
• 1:04:24
  Greenway or something loop SRKG for a little bit.
• 1:04:30
  Once I hit the town of Santa Pee I sort of like found dirt roads
• 1:04:34
  and trails and crossed my way up near to mid Lake Mascoma and
• 1:04:38
  Enfield. From there you can take a cut
• 1:04:40
  off trail which meets the AT at Moose Mountain and I took the AT
• 1:04:44
  all the way up over Moosey and over the Franks to Zealand.
• 1:04:51
  And then I cut over from Zealand to the Cohos Trail and took that
• 1:04:55
  up to the tippy top in New Hampshire at the 4th Connecticut
• 1:04:58
  Lake on the Cohos. Trail.
• 1:04:59
  So how long did that take you? That one took me I think a
• 1:05:03
  little over 9 days. Wow.
• 1:05:05
  It was a big one. I I was definitely averaging
• 1:05:07
  like 35A day or something. Yeah, wow.
• 1:05:10
  It was a it was a hot. That is a nice.
• 1:05:12
  I like that idea of having a similar to the Long Trail or
• 1:05:15
  something that we can really get a get kind of like a classic
• 1:05:19
  route. This is something I kind of want
• 1:05:21
  to chat with you about because you've come up with some of
• 1:05:23
  these FKTS. You've done a bunch of them, the
• 1:05:25
  guidebook stuff. You just, you're in all the, the
• 1:05:28
  nooks and crannies of the of this community.
• 1:05:31
  How do you think, you know, some of these routes get so much
• 1:05:35
  attention? How do you think we can keep
• 1:05:37
  track and like push some of these routes to really be kind
• 1:05:41
  of like iconic, classic 'cause I think some of these routes, some
• 1:05:44
  somebody will go on like you, but then no one maybe hears
• 1:05:47
  about. It.
• 1:05:48
  After a little while and then they die out and then we have so
• 1:05:51
  many FKTSI have this vision of like this hub website where it's
• 1:05:57
  just all the White Mountains are like the New Hampshire, like the
• 1:05:59
  best, baddest routes everyone has done at times.
• 1:06:03
  But it's really hard to do. Yeah.
• 1:06:04
  So how do you what? Do you?
• 1:06:05
  You're right, because like the FKT website is awesome as it is.
• 1:06:08
  It only shows the fastest time. Yeah.
• 1:06:11
  So it I do, I do love the FKT website for giving me ideas.
• 1:06:14
  I'm like, oh, that's cool, that's cool.
• 1:06:16
  And you go through the routes. Yeah, but you're right.
• 1:06:19
  And then Strava is just not the ideal location for that.
• 1:06:22
  You know, it's like just the way it's set up more of like, like
• 1:06:27
  with the run, the Whites, their throw downs, how they post
• 1:06:31
  everyone's time there. But you could kind of do that
• 1:06:34
  for everything or not even worry about times and just have the
• 1:06:37
  roots available. Yeah.
• 1:06:39
  Yeah, kind of like you could, you could have, you could have
• 1:06:41
  fastest times, you could have just leader boards of everyone
• 1:06:44
  and then everyone that's completed it.
• 1:06:46
  So at least people could compete.
• 1:06:48
  Like maybe they don't, you know, they can't set an FKT on a premi
• 1:06:52
  loop, but they can get on some sort of board to show all the I
• 1:06:55
  don't know. Totally.
• 1:06:56
  There's a fun. I mean, there was that.
• 1:06:58
  They probably don't even have the place.
• 1:06:59
  They'll do the Mount Adams challenge, you know that one.
• 1:07:02
  I think there's certain little roots and if you hit a certain
• 1:07:04
  time at the things that gives you a goal and then you see
• 1:07:07
  where you are in that year for everyone's thing.
• 1:07:11
  Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
• 1:07:13
  I think, you know, there's so much out here and all people
• 1:07:16
  know about are the 4000 footers. Yeah, I know, I know.
• 1:07:19
  You know. It is crazy and so and the 4000
• 1:07:22
  footers are great because I think like I'm a big fan of of
• 1:07:26
  peak bagging only because gets people out there and once
• 1:07:30
  they're hooked then they're going to start finding other
• 1:07:32
  stuff. Yeah, this is how it trickled
• 1:07:33
  down. You start doing a couple, you
• 1:07:35
  oh, I want to do Franconia Ridge and then you do 54000 footers
• 1:07:39
  and then. And, and would anybody like how
• 1:07:41
  many people, how many people go climb outside that aren't going
• 1:07:44
  for their 4000 footers? Like not many, you know.
• 1:07:48
  And so it gets you to these other places and you're like,
• 1:07:50
  oh, that was actually like a worthwhile.
• 1:07:52
  Like I remember the first time I did Alice had this.
• 1:07:55
  I mean, 18 miles in one day. It's huge.
• 1:07:58
  And it was like back when it was like audio books on tape or CD.
• 1:08:02
  And I and I remember I like listen to Beowulf on my way to
• 1:08:07
  Allison. So now.
• 1:08:07
  When everything else I just think.
• 1:08:09
  About Beowulf, you know, back in the day, that's funny.
• 1:08:12
  But, you know, you can have these really cool experiences
• 1:08:14
  that you wouldn't have if you didn't challenge yourself.
• 1:08:16
  I mean, isolation, all these ones, like, yeah, you know, why
• 1:08:19
  would you go there? And then you're like, oh, wow,
• 1:08:22
  what's another thing? You know?
• 1:08:23
  Yeah, no, it's been cool. And I feel like that's how I've.
• 1:08:26
  Kind of gone down this rabbit hole of I started out doing a
• 1:08:29
  couple hikes, then I did the 4000 footers, I saw a trail
• 1:08:32
  runner and now I'm this is what I do.
• 1:08:34
  This is my life. This is my life.
• 1:08:37
  Yeah, that's awesome. So yeah, I'm trying to think of
• 1:08:39
  other. The ice on one was.
• 1:08:41
  Big. I tried Vermont.
• 1:08:43
  I tried the Long Trail three times back when it was still
• 1:08:47
  attainable by a normal human being.
• 1:08:50
  Yeah. Mid state.
• 1:08:53
  Cohas trail unsupported, NS trail a bunch around a Scott
• 1:08:58
  knee. Those are probably.
• 1:09:02
  You got anything big coming up that you want to disclose?
• 1:09:04
  That you want to disclose? I mean, yeah.
• 1:09:10
  Keep your eyes peeled, people. Yeah.
• 1:09:11
  Yeah, I could. Put I could put it out there
• 1:09:13
  because I don't think I'm going. To have my, my, my dream.
• 1:09:15
  I had two big dreams. One was this unsupported walk
• 1:09:18
  across Iceland, and that was that was everything I had hoped
• 1:09:21
  it would be. It was just so spectacular.
• 1:09:24
  Yeah. Go listen to the From the
• 1:09:26
  Backcountry podcast 'cause You. Did a full deep dive back in the
• 1:09:30
  day for sure so. That was great.
• 1:09:33
  It's it's since been destroyed, as all of my records are, but
• 1:09:36
  that's OK. But the other one I've dreamed
• 1:09:41
  of for years. It's called the Haute Root
• 1:09:43
  Pyrenees. Have you heard of this?
• 1:09:44
  No. So it's basically the Pyrenees
• 1:09:47
  are the mountain range that basically divide Spain and
• 1:09:49
  France. Yeah.
• 1:09:51
  Incredible mountain range in a lot of ways, almost more
• 1:09:53
  dramatic than the Alps. Not glaciated in the same way,
• 1:09:56
  but just stunning. And the Haute Root Pyrenees
• 1:10:01
  follows the basically the French Spanish border the whole way
• 1:10:05
  along the highest route of the Pyrenees.
• 1:10:08
  And it's some trail, some off trail, really technical.
• 1:10:13
  But I think in if you do it straight, it's between 450 miles
• 1:10:17
  and something on the order of over 200,000.
• 1:10:23
  Vert you know. You're basically going up or
• 1:10:26
  down 1000 feet every mile of that trail, you know, And
• 1:10:29
  there's one guy who did an unsupported effort maybe like 6
• 1:10:35
  years ago. It took him 40-4 days.
• 1:10:36
  He started with £107.00 back. Oh my gosh.
• 1:10:42
  And. Then.
• 1:10:42
  About 3 years this other guy came and did a 30 day
• 1:10:46
  unsupported effort with a 60 LB pack which blows my mind.
• 1:10:52
  I don't know how he carried 30 days of food with 60 lbs.
• 1:10:54
  He must have been starving himself completely.
• 1:10:56
  Yeah, I guess I don't know the weights of that stuff, but that
• 1:10:59
  just seems. Like a ton of food that you
• 1:11:02
  would need. Oh yeah?
• 1:11:03
  Well, Iceland was 14 days and granted I had a.
• 1:11:05
  Lot of extra stuff, but I still you know, if you're thinking 3
• 1:11:09
  lbs a day and you're that you know, that's 40 lbs of food, you
• 1:11:14
  know so, so my dream is to go is to the unsupported cool.
• 1:11:20
  Now you touch, you touch the Mediterranean, you touch the.
• 1:11:22
  Atlantic, you touch the Mediterranean.
• 1:11:24
  Carrying all your food from one to the other.
• 1:11:26
  So I'm trying. I'm like coming.
• 1:11:28
  Up with sort of like. I'm trying to think OK, assuming
• 1:11:32
  the hardest part of of of of hiking and running for me these
• 1:11:35
  days is getting like spousal permission as many know.
• 1:11:41
  So you know, I'm a parent I need to be around.
• 1:11:44
  And it's hard to take a long time off, but assuming I can do
• 1:11:49
  this next year, I'm trying to think of like, what can I do to
• 1:11:52
  sort of build up for that? You know what are some things
• 1:11:55
  that are like either have lots of vert that I can do with the
• 1:11:58
  backpack or like a long carry that I can do to check for a
• 1:12:03
  long carry. So cool.
• 1:12:04
  Yeah, that would be epic. Yeah, we'll.
• 1:12:06
  Stay tuned. Yeah.
• 1:12:07
  I mean, it's, you know. I mean, Heather and a few others
• 1:12:11
  have done the Arizona Trail and supported, granted, technically,
• 1:12:16
  I mean, this is I think, I think that one would probably be
• 1:12:18
  faster than this one just cause of the technicality of this one.
• 1:12:21
  Yeah, but I don't know, I'm excited and I'm like, you know,
• 1:12:27
  expense wise, like once you're there you're it's a month of you
• 1:12:30
  not spending a single dollar. So that cheap could again, you
• 1:12:33
  know, so my wife can't use that again.
• 1:12:35
  So we all got to just fly out there.
• 1:12:39
  That is funny. So I got that one and yeah, I
• 1:12:42
  don't know. I do Vermont 100 every year.
• 1:12:44
  I've been doing Krampusloth every year.
• 1:12:46
  Yeah that's a cool one. Did Rutfest last year.
• 1:12:49
  Might do that one. Again, I don't know.
• 1:12:53
  Yeah, just lots of. I mean, I have so many ideas.
• 1:12:56
  I mean, I have so many. You seem like an ideas person.
• 1:12:59
  You seem like you like to try different.
• 1:13:00
  Things you got everything cook it up yeah yeah and you know
• 1:13:03
  what and and like I always. Talk about like, you know, I
• 1:13:06
  never was a great athlete and I'm still not like a great
• 1:13:11
  athlete. And I.
• 1:13:12
  And I think like that set my ex like I don't judge like my
• 1:13:18
  enjoyment of the sport based on like how well I perform, you
• 1:13:21
  know, and I think that takes a lot of the pressure off.
• 1:13:23
  I just love to be out there and like push myself as hard as I
• 1:13:26
  can and be happy with that. Like, you know, and I'm 48, like
• 1:13:30
  I'm not getting any any younger, you know.
• 1:13:33
  So that being said, I mean, I ran my fastest 5K last year.
• 1:13:38
  And so you never know what could happen.
• 1:13:41
  You never know. Yeah, I feel like people,
• 1:13:43
  people. You can PR way older than you
• 1:13:46
  think you can. The longer you go the I mean the
• 1:13:49
  easier it is just. Sort of like where speed doesn't
• 1:13:51
  become a factor. I mean, just look at Bill Ted,
• 1:13:53
  right? Yeah, like the perfect example.
• 1:13:56
  You have not peaked. Yet Bill Ted 63 and set one of
• 1:13:58
  the biggest records Bill Ted will Bill Ted will always be
• 1:14:02
  older than. Me, and therefore I could always
• 1:14:05
  be working towards yeah exactly yeah when I'm. 15.
• 1:14:10
  Years when I'm when he's 85 and I'm when he's 80 and I'm 65, I'm
• 1:14:14
  going to be like some damn, I'm going to be like built here.
• 1:14:18
  Yeah. So yeah, so, so much fun and
• 1:14:22
  yeah. Cool.
• 1:14:24
  Was there anything big that we missed?
• 1:14:26
  You got a race coming up tomorrow, got a race coming up.
• 1:14:29
  You ready for it? How?
• 1:14:30
  What's your goal? For this race.
• 1:14:32
  I don't know. We'll see.
• 1:14:33
  I really have no idea, you know? Given that I run that I race
• 1:14:37
  direct the last person standing race, I thought it'd be good to
• 1:14:39
  like dip my toes in one again. Yeah, after after it's been a
• 1:14:42
  little while. I think if I could make a 24
• 1:14:48
  hours I'll be. Pretty psyched, yeah, I.
• 1:14:49
  Have no idea if I can or not, but that would be a great goal
• 1:14:55
  of mine, just to meet new people and, yeah, enjoy it.
• 1:14:59
  You know, it's pretty sparse. You don't.
• 1:15:01
  You can't have a lot here. You can't even have a tent.
• 1:15:03
  So it's like you just got a chair and a bag and a cooler and
• 1:15:06
  that's it. I don't have anybody there.
• 1:15:08
  And so it'll just be like, whatever it is, it's also
• 1:15:11
  supposed to be like, it's been cool, very cool.
• 1:15:13
  Spring here. Supposed to be 77 tomorrow and
• 1:15:17
  87 on Sunday. Yeah.
• 1:15:19
  So that's going to play a role. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:15:22
  Yeah. This is coming out of nowhere,
• 1:15:23
  the heat this weekend. I was.
• 1:15:24
  Kind of looking at, yeah, it may be potentially doing some sort
• 1:15:28
  of effort, but I don't think it's going to work out anywhere.
• 1:15:30
  But I'm like, wow, it's hot this weekend.
• 1:15:32
  We're not ready for this heat. Yeah, in Connecticut at like 300
• 1:15:35
  feet of elevation. Yeah, yeah, it's you're going to
• 1:15:38
  get it all. Yeah.
• 1:15:39
  So I'm looking forward to. That I mean that's.
• 1:15:42
  Exciting just to dip my toe in a in a in a race again, you know
• 1:15:45
  kind of getting back. I did run amok a couple weeks
• 1:15:47
  ago now it's fun just to kind of get moving again.
• 1:15:51
  But yeah. And then only other thing is
• 1:15:55
  August, I've got a couple weeks set aside my, my, if I can make
• 1:15:59
  it work. We'll see.
• 1:16:00
  What if I can make it work? Kind of want to do the Quebec
• 1:16:04
  section of the international AT OK, so it looks freaking
• 1:16:08
  awesome. Yeah.
• 1:16:09
  Have you been up there before? Never.
• 1:16:10
  Never. Well.
• 1:16:11
  No, I shouldn't say that I've. Skied up in the gas Bay.
• 1:16:13
  So we've been up to the chick choks and skied up there in the
• 1:16:15
  winter, but I've never, never hiked up there.
• 1:16:19
  But it just looks like rugged and remote and awesome.
• 1:16:22
  Yeah, that would be epic. So that I think that would be a
• 1:16:24
  good training. So we'll see if we can.
• 1:16:25
  Do that and then, yeah, I don't know, try to get out in the way
• 1:16:30
  he's trying to get my kids. We're trying to do a few 4000
• 1:16:34
  footers every year with them. Nice.
• 1:16:36
  So and then we've got a couple nights up.
• 1:16:38
  At Baxter this. Summer and when they get the
• 1:16:41
  kids up Knife's Edge. So that'd be epic.
• 1:16:43
  Yeah, that would be awesome. I still have.
• 1:16:45
  Never done. I did Kitana once but not the
• 1:16:46
  knife's edge. So that's a bucket list for me.
• 1:16:49
  I mean, it's not like. There's one hard move, one tiny
• 1:16:53
  little section that's hard. Beyond that, it's not that
• 1:16:55
  difficult. Like my daughter's nine and I'm.
• 1:16:57
  I'm comfortable taking her on. Yeah, lots of people coming to
• 1:17:01
  Naveen, you know, or anything, but it's one of the most
• 1:17:03
  stunning, dramatic sections of trail you'll hit anywhere in the
• 1:17:09
  world, let alone, you know, the Northeast.
• 1:17:11
  Wow, that's awesome. Anyways.
• 1:17:13
  Cool, where can people find you? Yup, Eli Bierakian is.
• 1:17:18
  At Eli Bierakian. More importantly, Northeast
• 1:17:20
  Trail Adventures, Northeast Trail adventures.com there are
• 1:17:26
  spaces available on our at our retreat and it's going to be so
• 1:17:30
  much fun and we have different price options.
• 1:17:32
  What's the dates for that? Because it's coming soon.
• 1:17:34
  There's these people. Are going to hear it.
• 1:17:36
  Maybe a couple week notice. OK, yeah, June 5th through 8th.
• 1:17:39
  So it starts. Like, you know, you get there on
• 1:17:41
  a Friday afternoon and we're there till Monday afternoon.
• 1:17:45
  Like I said, great people if how about how about this?
• 1:17:53
  If you use the code RMP 100 run mountain peaks 100, you get $100
• 1:17:58
  off. There you go people.
• 1:18:00
  Look at that. There you go. $100 off don't
• 1:18:03
  well, I got to, I got to add that.
• 1:18:04
  I got to add that to the. System tonight, but luckily this
• 1:18:07
  isn't a lie. Yeah, it comes out on Sunday, so
• 1:18:09
  you can add. That in RMP one. 100 cool.
• 1:18:14
  And then there's other discount codes out there to get $100 off
• 1:18:18
  each of the, each of the leaders have a discount code and it can
• 1:18:23
  make it, it, it, it can be pretty affordable, like all the
• 1:18:26
  guiding, all the lodging, all the food, like it's going to be
• 1:18:29
  awesome. So Northeast Trail
• 1:18:31
  adventures.com on ultra sign up. You can sign up for the Scott
• 1:18:34
  new vertical backyard. And that is the the weekend
• 1:18:38
  before Thanksgiving. And then if you need a
• 1:18:41
  photographer, if you're getting married or anything, there you
• 1:18:44
  go. Perfect.
• 1:18:46
  Give me a holler. Eli Bureaki and.
• 1:18:48
  Photographyorelibureakiand.com on there and I really, it was so
• 1:18:54
  much fun chatting with you. Yeah, no, this is awesome.
• 1:18:56
  I'm glad we could link up for this.
• 1:18:58
  I. Feel like this with the most
• 1:18:59
  disjointed conversation. I've had like so many different
• 1:19:02
  scattered ideas. I think it was great.
• 1:19:04
  I think it was great. This is how most of my.
• 1:19:06
  If you guys have listened to a lot of my podcasts, this is how
• 1:19:09
  some of them go. So it's just like you're sitting
• 1:19:11
  on the couch with us while we're chatting.
• 1:19:13
  About this stuff, This is why I tell people like when I go with
• 1:19:16
  a run. Or just talking about whatever
• 1:19:18
  pops up. Like that's just what totally
• 1:19:20
  I'm posting, you know, And this is, this is like therapy for me
• 1:19:24
  too. Because, you know, I'm, I'm
• 1:19:27
  allowed about 10 to 20 words of ultra running or hiking talk a
• 1:19:32
  day in my household before, Yeah, before I start to get the
• 1:19:37
  scowl. Like, OK, enough of that
• 1:19:39
  already. So, you know, now I've just been
• 1:19:41
  able to dump it all out. It's like a full purge.
• 1:19:44
  I know that's what I tell some of my.
• 1:19:47
  Non runners, I'm like, if I just oh, I heard about this work.
• 1:19:50
  There's new, did you see that new?
• 1:19:52
  And I just like they're like, I don't care.
• 1:19:54
  It's like now every week I can just get all my thoughts out
• 1:19:57
  perfect. It's off my friend.
• 1:19:58
  So that's funny. I'm like, yeah, honey, wish me
• 1:20:01
  good luck on my race. She's like did.
• 1:20:02
  You get the trash, Yeah, it's 100 miles going for a.
• 1:20:06
  Buckle, thank you. So.
• 1:20:08
  No, it's awesome. Cool.
• 1:20:09
  All right. Well, thanks.
• 1:20:10
  For doing this. Good luck this weekend.
• 1:20:11
  Yeah. Thanks guys.
• 1:20:22
  All right guys, to end this episode we're.
• 1:20:24
  Going to do race previews, race results, and are we going to do
• 1:20:30
  a motivation minute? I don't know.
• 1:20:31
  Maybe we'll throw in a motivation minute.
• 1:20:33
  Might feel motivational. This is the earliest I've ever
• 1:20:37
  recorded anything for the podcast, so who knows?
• 1:20:40
  But actually, I do a lot of work in the morning.
• 1:20:42
  I do I I get up OK, we'll start with the race.
• 1:20:49
  Oh my God, I'm not even ready for this.
• 1:20:52
  Guys, This is. I need a better system, guys,
• 1:20:56
  You know what? No, I'm keeping this in.
• 1:20:58
  Guys, I need a better system. I'm getting overwhelmed with
• 1:21:01
  these race results and race previews.
• 1:21:03
  And here's the problem. I I.
• 1:21:06
  Just. Don't have enough?
• 1:21:07
  Like getting the podcast out every week, It's hard to have
• 1:21:10
  the time to keep track of everything.
• 1:21:15
  Well, and I, I, I have the goal of having this awesome system in
• 1:21:19
  place where it's like, boom, just check it off, check it off
• 1:21:22
  easy. But I just don't.
• 1:21:24
  So I need to do a little work on my end.
• 1:21:26
  That's on me. I need to get better.
• 1:21:28
  I need to work on my craft. And then, and then the other one
• 1:21:34
  is I need AI, need a printer and I have AI think I'm going to get
• 1:21:38
  a printer and then I can just print.
• 1:21:41
  I can get everything on one big sheet and then just print it out
• 1:21:45
  and then I can just read it when I record the podcast.
• 1:21:48
  So hopefully guys, if you, if you guys like the, the results
• 1:21:53
  in the preview section, maybe just Nah, you don't have to
• 1:21:57
  comment. I don't know, Maybe just send me
• 1:22:00
  a vibe through, you know, send me a little vibe and I'll try to
• 1:22:05
  catch it through my my 6th sense because sometimes it is just
• 1:22:11
  kind of like reading through lots of results.
• 1:22:13
  But I try to make it, you know, I'm learning about the results
• 1:22:16
  too as I go. So I try to, you know, make it
• 1:22:19
  somewhat interesting. But yeah, it is a, it's a, it's
• 1:22:23
  a pain in the butt the way I do it right now.
• 1:22:25
  So I'm just going to work on my game.
• 1:22:26
  I'm just going to, I'm just going to work on my craft.
• 1:22:29
  But OK, today I'm how do we get here?
• 1:22:33
  Today? We're going to do some results.
• 1:22:38
  So here's the thing about the results.
• 1:22:39
  They don't always come in really.
• 1:22:41
  I, I, it's like hard to track. You would think like a good
• 1:22:44
  Google search or a good AI search would just get you the
• 1:22:48
  results. It really doesn't all of the
• 1:22:50
  times. So the blue to blue challenge
• 1:22:54
  new 50K in New Haven CT I I don't think I have results for
• 1:23:01
  those. Yeah, we just don't know.
• 1:23:13
  Oh my gosh, guys. Can I keep can I even keep this
• 1:23:17
  part in? All right, let's see this.
• 1:23:22
  We're going to do this on the. Fly, this is horrible.
• 1:23:23
  I I need to, I need to leave in 8 minutes.
• 1:23:25
  Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.
• 1:23:34
  Ultra. 2026 This is hilarious. Honestly, part of me is.
• 1:23:41
  Like, no, we do have results. All right, So the B to B
• 1:23:43
  challenge, Matt Pacheco, he's really fast.
• 1:23:45
  See his name a bunch. We're going to do the overall.
• 1:23:48
  This is the blue to blue challenge race result 50K Matt
• 1:23:51
  Pacheco 537. He's a fast guy.
• 1:23:55
  He's like a mass. He always is in some of those
• 1:23:57
  TARK races. This is, this was a Connecticut
• 1:23:59
  New Haven, CT race. But when he's in it, he's
• 1:24:02
  running fast. 2nd place Daniel Ragos Ragos, 555 and then third
• 1:24:09
  place Fred Wills 622. So that's what we got there.
• 1:24:15
  First place female winner winner Chicken dinner Aaron McFarlane,
• 1:24:20
  8 hours 14 minutes. Second place Graesom Newman 831
• 1:24:26
  and then third place Catherine Walsh 912.
• 1:24:31
  There's the B2B challenge. OK, so we got one.
• 1:24:34
  Next is the big a big a 50K trail race 2026.
• 1:24:46
  I just assume if you're still listening you were just a
• 1:24:48
  hardcore. Yeah, big Ulta.
• 1:24:58
  Let me see here. Let me see here now, now.
• 1:25:02
  Oh, Tyler Sheedy. OK, so they updated.
• 1:25:04
  Wait. OK, Pat Oh, OK, we got it.
• 1:25:08
  We got it. We got it.
• 1:25:09
  OK, here are the results. They updated the course record.
• 1:25:12
  So they have the results. So we talked about this briefly
• 1:25:15
  last week, but Tyler Sheedy, he smashed the course record like
• 1:25:21
  obliterated it. They don't have times on the on
• 1:25:24
  the results page. This is in this is crazy, guys.
• 1:25:32
  Oh my God, this is insane big the big A.
• 1:25:35
  What are you doing? OK, so.
• 1:25:37
  He set. The course record so we rent it
• 1:25:38
  427 but I'm I'm I downloaded the PDF on the website and it has
• 1:25:44
  last name, first name, hometown, age, gender, loop 1, loop 2,
• 1:25:47
  loop 30. It's cumulative time.
• 1:25:49
  Holy crap, I'm so stupid. It's guys, it's really early.
• 1:25:54
  I was looking at the loop. I'm like, they put the loop time
• 1:25:56
  but not the total time. This is insane.
• 1:25:58
  So loop 1, loop 2, and then it says total time, which OK, Oh my
• 1:26:05
  God. Tyler Sheedy negative split 131
• 1:26:08
  and then can I do math? OK, 131 on the 1st loop.
• 1:26:13
  Oh my God, somebody ran a 126. Eric Brooks.
• 1:26:15
  He's really fast. I've seen his name before.
• 1:26:19
  OK. Anyway, Tyler Sheedy comes in
• 1:26:21
  1st 427, second place Eric Brooks, 448, third place Alex
• 1:26:25
  Cox 5/17. So that was the top.
• 1:26:30
  Three men and then. Top three female Emily Baer 732
• 1:26:38
  First female second female Patty Higgins 733 photo finish When I
• 1:26:45
  am reading these results, there are so many more photo finishes
• 1:26:48
  than I would have thought in ultras.
• 1:26:50
  Like I guess because there's so many of them, there's probably
• 1:26:53
  like over 100 races, but there are a lot of photo finishes.
• 1:26:56
  So this is one minute off. Let's see the battle between
• 1:26:59
  Emily and Patty. So the first loop, Emily goes
• 1:27:02
  221, Patty goes 228. More conservative on Patty's
• 1:27:06
  end. The 2nd loop cumulative time 452
• 1:27:11
  for Emily and then five O 1 for Patty.
• 1:27:13
  So Emily actually ran the 2nd loop, the 1st loop 7 minutes
• 1:27:17
  faster, the second loop one or two minutes faster.
• 1:27:20
  And then Patty comes storming and she almost makes the
• 1:27:24
  comeback. She finished at 7:33 and then
• 1:27:26
  Emily does 732. So in in my head when I'm
• 1:27:29
  analyzing a race I love, you know, obviously a negative.
• 1:27:33
  Split. Consistent paces in a negative
• 1:27:36
  split is the best or a negative split, if you can, is the best
• 1:27:39
  way to run to run. I think any race, truthfully,
• 1:27:44
  you know, 100 mile, 24 hour plus races.
• 1:27:47
  Maybe you can argue like you, you're never going to have that,
• 1:27:50
  you know, going to be able to do it.
• 1:27:52
  But I do think that, but here if I'm Patty, you're like, Ah, if I
• 1:27:57
  just went out at 2:26, like 'cause she was probably going
• 1:28:00
  easy that first loop fairly easier If she just went 226,
• 1:28:04
  It's like, Oh, could I have, you know, this is always the the the
• 1:28:08
  thoughts there. But anyway, she gave it our all
• 1:28:11
  at the end anyway, that was cool little battle for 1st and 2nd
• 1:28:15
  and then third place Hane Haney Heinrich, she goes 756, so not
• 1:28:23
  too far behind. So that was the top three there.
• 1:28:26
  Boom, we get the big a race peak blood Root ultra.
• 1:28:29
  This one is never Maybe I just this is kind of like a bring you
• 1:28:34
  guys along for do researching race results.
• 1:28:38
  So peak blood root ultra 2026 results.
• 1:28:42
  These is this. I think this is a Spartan race.
• 1:28:46
  If even if it isn't, it feels Spartany, I'll give you.
• 1:28:53
  Guys a little background into my.
• 1:28:54
  Life actually, right now, yeah, it's a Spartan race.
• 1:28:58
  You can't get the Spartan results.
• 1:29:00
  I, I don't know, Spartan has I literally I don't even.
• 1:29:05
  Know about these Spartan races? They just have this.
• 1:29:09
  I don't know. It just seems like you can't get
• 1:29:10
  much good information. It's, I don't know, Maybe we
• 1:29:15
  need to talk to the guy who founded Spartan.
• 1:29:18
  Yeah, maybe we. I've seen him on.
• 1:29:20
  A bunch of podcasts. Because it like the market, I
• 1:29:23
  mean Spartan just goes, but the marketing.
• 1:29:29
  That they do is so good. And you do not, you cannot not
• 1:29:33
  talk for a long time on a podcast.
• 1:29:34
  This is especially right now. And I don't have the video
• 1:29:37
  going. This is horrible.
• 1:29:39
  Oh, you could be watching a beautiful picture of me running
• 1:29:41
  in the mountains video. And if this goes more than 8
• 1:29:45
  minutes, I'm going to loop it twice.
• 1:29:46
  I, I, I apologize guys. So we have no results there.
• 1:29:51
  The CT trail mixers, I've been there before.
• 1:29:53
  They don't post results. So that's it.
• 1:29:55
  Tarkwa pack and back. We did the results last week,
• 1:30:00
  right? No, no, no.
• 1:30:02
  What am I saying? No, we didn't do the results.
• 1:30:05
  I'm I'm highlighting these green as we go people.
• 1:30:11
  OK, what Tuppa? What tuppa 50K30K and 10K
• 1:30:16
  results. I think I have those those
• 1:30:18
  results up here. 1st place Alexander Burke.
• 1:30:24
  Four O 9 Second place Padrag Mullins 413 Third place Sean
• 1:30:31
  Smilek 425. Here's the women's race.
• 1:30:35
  First place Emma Kuchar Kuchera 5 OOO 5.
• 1:30:42
  Almost gets of under the four hour.
• 1:30:44
  I always wonder like when you're finishing, right?
• 1:30:46
  Like before you even hit one minute and the next hour, I
• 1:30:50
  mean, you are pushing with all your mind to get that, you know,
• 1:30:53
  459 looks a lot better than 5 O even though the effort is the
• 1:30:57
  same. Congratulations, Emma.
• 1:30:58
  First place, second place Katie Dean 532 and then third place
• 1:31:03
  Sarah Smilek 542. Did I just say that or 532 for
• 1:31:09
  Katie Dean, 53542 for Sarah. Oh, Sean smile like 5 and Sarah
• 1:31:16
  smile like each so got to be siblings, right?
• 1:31:19
  You would assume because you would assume because of the the
• 1:31:22
  last name being the same. You'd assume because they're
• 1:31:25
  both fast genetics are similar. And then Sean and Sarah, you
• 1:31:29
  know how some people will name like they like the first letter
• 1:31:32
  of the names or they like the ends of certain names?
• 1:31:34
  They name all the kids like that.
• 1:31:36
  You got to bet that these guys are related.
• 1:31:38
  Or I mean this actually wasn't AI generator response for this
• 1:31:42
  one. Watapa Trail races, 2026
• 1:31:50
  results. Oh, so I didn't.
• 1:31:51
  Even say that I'm going to let you into my life.
• 1:31:54
  So my laptop I use let Chrome, you know, 'cause I think Google
• 1:31:58
  is definitely the best. I use Chrome, but my automatic
• 1:32:01
  web browser is Yahoo. And you would be so shocked.
• 1:32:06
  OK, yeah, this is those results. Oh, no.
• 1:32:11
  Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, those results were
• 1:32:13
  correct. Let me just give it a once over.
• 1:32:17
  No, Emma. Emma.
• 1:32:22
  What did I say? Yeah.
• 1:32:26
  OK, OK. This is the worst.
• 1:32:31
  Section This is the. Worst results section I've ever
• 1:32:34
  had in my life. No, the the default browser is
• 1:32:38
  Yahoo, which is you would be in in like shocked out of belief
• 1:32:44
  that Yahoo cannot come up with like results.
• 1:32:47
  Go try to type anything in Yahoo related to true like anything.
• 1:32:51
  And it's like the most horrible results.
• 1:32:53
  And I've tried to fix it a bunch of different ways and it works
• 1:32:56
  for like a day and then it just goes back to Yahoo.
• 1:32:58
  So now anytime I have to look up anything, I have to Yahoo,
• 1:33:02
  Google, go to Google and then type it in.
• 1:33:05
  It's horribly annoying. And I believe I it's some sort
• 1:33:08
  of virus on my computer, but I can't be sure.
• 1:33:13
  That was what Tuppa and last but not least, Tarkwa pack it back.
• 1:33:17
  I mean this one, yeah. And guys, we're not, we're not
• 1:33:22
  going to do the. Results.
• 1:33:23
  We're going to do the race pre or the preview.
• 1:33:25
  We're going to do the preview. I am going to go back to doing
• 1:33:28
  the preview in person. I've been posting them on the
• 1:33:30
  Instagram, so at least we're getting the content out there
• 1:33:33
  and probably more people see it that way anyway.
• 1:33:35
  So it's good, you know, I'm not going to feel guilty but not
• 1:33:38
  putting them in. But like I said, once we get
• 1:33:42
  this printer fired up and I can just print everything out of my
• 1:33:45
  sheet, you guys are going to be the listening experience for you
• 1:33:48
  guys is going to be off the charts.
• 1:33:50
  But I'm going to go from, I think I have maybe 14 five star
• 1:33:54
  reviews on Spotify to a million overnight and I just need a
• 1:33:58
  printer. We're going back.
• 1:34:00
  We're going back in time. I need a printer for this stuff.
• 1:34:03
  I'm not using my phone because I use my phone to film people.
• 1:34:08
  I, I, I need to leave. I need to leave. 3 minutes ago.
• 1:34:13
  I still haven't done the Wapak and back results.
• 1:34:15
  We're going to pull that up. Big races.
• 1:34:17
  I should almost put this at the beginning, but we're not going
• 1:34:19
  to. We're not going to do it, but I
• 1:34:23
  have to leave this in guys. This is it's getting
• 1:34:25
  excruciatingly hard when I have a busy week to do all this
• 1:34:29
  stuff. May I, like I said, ball nowhere
• 1:34:32
  I need to get I need to get my game up OK, tarp wah back and
• 1:34:37
  back. Luckily, boom pops right up.
• 1:34:46
  Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo. Doo do do do do do do do do do
• 1:34:52
  do do do course records for the Yeah.
• 1:34:56
  Dang, I don't know who had that one before.
• 1:34:59
  OK, guys, massive year. Pretend like, you know, this was
• 1:35:06
  just given to you smoothly and we just got here easily.
• 1:35:11
  They don't have the 21. Mile results up here come.
• 1:35:14
  On guys. OK, we'll start with the 43 mile
• 1:35:19
  Walter Mahonin 7-O2 course record.
• 1:35:24
  That's a 949 mile. This dude, we smoking.
• 1:35:29
  We were. I was watching and Connor Brown
• 1:35:31
  was posting updates on his race. He ran the 50 mile, won the 50
• 1:35:35
  mile and one of the reports was Walter.
• 1:35:38
  There's one guy had a Conner and he is just ripping.
• 1:35:41
  He did the 43. So it was a shorter race.
• 1:35:43
  But Walter Mahonan, holy crap, this guy.
• 1:35:46
  I want to get Travis and Walter on the podcast because I just
• 1:35:49
  talk about them like every every time they race.
• 1:35:52
  So maybe we can make that happen.
• 1:35:55
  He gets first crazy good time. New course record, which I don't
• 1:35:59
  know who had the course record before, but it was fast. 2nd
• 1:36:04
  place Jason Smith, 912. So I mean awesome time, amazing
• 1:36:09
  time. Jason Smith going sub 10 super
• 1:36:12
  fast. I mean even sub 10, but Walter
• 1:36:15
  wins by 2:10. That is insane.
• 1:36:20
  A one man race from the get go. Third place Stephen Hogson 935
• 1:36:29
  and then and then we'll go to the women's Kate Caitlin
• 1:36:32
  Cheesley. We see her name a lot, 1045 She
• 1:36:35
  wins it. Second place Sarah Nelson 1241
• 1:36:39
  Third place Julia Magnuson 1259. So it was a 43 mile.
• 1:36:45
  The 50 mile will go with the results.
• 1:36:50
  The youngblood Connor Brown, nine O 3.
• 1:36:55
  He almost sets a course record, so I think it must have been
• 1:36:58
  good. Good weather, good trail
• 1:37:00
  conditions, hasn't been super rainy.
• 1:37:02
  But he just smashed. I think he was 10 minutes off
• 1:37:04
  the course record. So he ran the 50 mile wins that.
• 1:37:09
  That dude is is is just young and fast.
• 1:37:13
  Pure young, fast and tough. Purely put.
• 1:37:16
  Jacob Cohen, 957, second place and then third place.
• 1:37:22
  Matt Naughton 10/30 10:30 So that's the top three and the top
• 1:37:27
  three, all 20 to 29. So some young guys smoking it
• 1:37:32
  only one female finisher Madison Brooks she takes it home 1357 So
• 1:37:38
  that's a 50 mile results but they.
• 1:37:40
  Don't have? Why would they not have the 21
• 1:37:44
  mile results? I guess this is ultra.
• 1:37:48
  This is like ultrarunning.com that I'm getting these results
• 1:37:53
  from, I guess let's go to the website.
• 1:37:56
  Let's go to the website. And I think they, they actually,
• 1:37:58
  I think they have a spreadsheet now where they track everything,
• 1:38:01
  which is. I guess better.
• 1:38:09
  I think. The link it it's like not easily
• 1:38:10
  found those. So I think like it's like the
• 1:38:12
  results are here. So I'm going to control F here
• 1:38:17
  and we're getting a bunch of where's yet where, where, there,
• 1:38:22
  there, there, where, there, there, where the results start.
• 1:38:28
  Here we go, I got it. The the. 26 OK, so here we go.
• 1:38:34
  Oh man, so this the. 21 mile. Was an awesome race too.
• 1:38:40
  I kind of want to start out with it.
• 1:38:41
  But I think the one thing I think.
• 1:38:43
  About the results is you know if I do a preview.
• 1:38:47
  People are excited about the race.
• 1:38:48
  And then the results, it's like, I guess you want to talk about
• 1:38:51
  storylines, but if you're interested in the race, you
• 1:38:54
  probably just already know the results.
• 1:38:56
  So, but 21 1/2, this is the one way Travis Mahonan 319 wins it
• 1:39:05
  again. I mean, this guy goes out there
• 1:39:06
  and wins it almost every year. Him and his brother just I mean,
• 1:39:10
  they just own this race in the in the previous years, Walter
• 1:39:13
  and Travis, like I said, we'll get him on at some point.
• 1:39:16
  Maybe, who knows, maybe maybe 2nd place Ryan Williams, he is
• 1:39:21
  very, very fast, very, very fit. He runs 336 And then third place
• 1:39:26
  Roy Van Cleef again, very, very fast, very, very fit. 340 Mike
• 1:39:30
  Velihue's in here W tribe. Look at I mean, there's fast
• 1:39:34
  people in here crushers. So that's the top three.
• 1:39:37
  And then the winning female. Here we go.
• 1:39:41
  Laura Mathis, four O 5. That is actually smoke it fast.
• 1:39:45
  What is the course record for the 21?
• 1:39:49
  The 21 is 354 from Sophia Farnsworth in 2024, so 10
• 1:39:56
  minutes off the course record. And then where are we now?
• 1:40:03
  Laura Rickey 433, she comes in second.
• 1:40:07
  And then Lindsay Masterson, 443, she comes in 3rd.
• 1:40:13
  So those are the TARC waapack and back results and I am
• 1:40:16
  officially caught up on results. I'm caught up on previews, which
• 1:40:22
  is Oh no, the one, Oh my gosh, we did the waapack back here,
• 1:40:27
  man. This is getting out of control.
• 1:40:30
  And then I'll just go and I'm going to leave carefree guys, I
• 1:40:33
  missed the race. I have two tabs on my
• 1:40:36
  spreadsheet. One is New England ultra races,
• 1:40:39
  one is 2026 mountain sub ultra races, the Seven Sisters race.
• 1:40:45
  How did I miss this? I mean, honestly, it doesn't.
• 1:40:50
  You know, it's so big that I feel like, you know, it doesn't
• 1:40:54
  it doesn't need me to say anything, but I don't even know
• 1:40:57
  if you can get the the results. Yeah.
• 1:41:00
  Is this one of the ones that I can't even get the results?
• 1:41:02
  Seven Sisters Trail race. Let's see if it has it results.
• 1:41:07
  Here we go. Yeah, 2026 results aren't.
• 1:41:11
  Even up so I didn't didn't. Miss the results.
• 1:41:13
  But anyway, that is a massive race, massive race, super
• 1:41:17
  technical. I know Steven Kerr came in
• 1:41:20
  second, I'm pretty sure. So that's the one, but we can't
• 1:41:24
  do a review. But I missed that race.
• 1:41:26
  It's because it was on the other tab and I never look in the
• 1:41:28
  other tab because there's so many less.
• 1:41:30
  But now I'm starting to look at the other tab.
• 1:41:32
  So you know, poof, I know you guys are hearing that and are
• 1:41:35
  like, thank goodness he's looking at the other tab now.
• 1:41:40
  So I missed that. That's a big one.
• 1:41:41
  It's on me. But that's what we got today.
• 1:41:43
  That's that's the whole. That's.
• 1:41:45
  All I got for you guys. I hope you guys enjoyed the
• 1:41:47
  episode. You guys a cool dude.
• 1:41:49
  He's so well connected all over. He just loves it it it was very
• 1:41:55
  obvious to me. He loves the sport, he loves
• 1:41:57
  hiking, he loves the trails, he loves the community just so much
• 1:42:01
  So it was cool interview. Hope you guys enjoyed.
• 1:42:04
  Thanks for staying with me on this.
• 1:42:05
  If you made it through here, shout out.
• 1:42:08
  I appreciate you. That was a journey and we made
• 1:42:11
  it. And now you can go do whatever
• 1:42:13
  you do the rest of your day. All right, we'll see you next
• 1:42:16
  week. Peace.